


Normal is for Other People

by marzipan (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Famous writer!John Watson, Humor, M/M, Mike Holmes - Freeform, Normal AU, PI!Sherlock Holmes, Professor!james moriarty, because Only Sane Man is like my favorite trope gdi, like actually, office drone!mycroft, sorry about the handwavy math-ing, where everyone is a slightly more realistic version of their modern selves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-24 01:46:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13800771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/marzipan
Summary: Mycroft Holmes has tried to live an unobtrusive life. Being teased and bullied for your name, looks, brains, and, well, basically everything, from a very, very young age will do that to you.It doesn't help that everything and everyone he associates with happens to screams for scrutiny and attention.His younger brother is somewhat of a celebrity of a private investigator and his coworkers are all conspiracy theorists. Then he starts to date a professor who turns out to be a cybercriminal and his brother's archenemy because of COURSE he is.AU where Mycroft ACTUALLY holds a minor position in the government, but somehow ends up becoming The Government anyway and it’s not nearly all it’s cracked up to be.





	Normal is for Other People

 

Mycroft Holmes, a nondescript office worker in his mid 30s, bespectacled, sits at his cubicle, and types away. Occasionally, he stops to shuffle papers around, filling in forms with his perfect penmanship.

 

He goes by “Mike.”

 

The office floor is occupied by about 50 people, most of whom work between the beige walls, in their little cubicles. The floor is typically quiet, and, if you listen closely, you can hear the slow death of childhood hopes and dreams.

 

But not for Mike Holmes.

 

No, for Mike, this is perfect. This is everything he has ever wanted.

 

☂☂☂

 

Mike is in the middle of filling out forms 38C-A and 39C-Bii when secretaries Agatha Wood and Janine Hawkins pass by the felt-covered cubicle wall that partitions him off from the rest of the world. They’re whispering very loudly.

 

“They’re _missing_ ,” one hisses hysterically, hand practically a vice-like claw gripping onto the other secretary’s arm.

 

The other one teeters a bit at the contact, still trying to type away manically on her Blackberry.

 

“Look _again,”_ she whisper-yells. “Call Benji. Have him look again. Get all of the interns to look again! Upturn the office if they have to, we need the numbers _now._ ”

 

The downside of the office is, to Mike anyway, that it also functions as a shortcut to the adjacent building where many of the ministry offices are held. This means, for some, a lot of interesting gossip.

 

“We _need_ to secure that oil deal,” the Blackberry Secretary continues. “And the Minister needs those numbers!”

 

At that, Mike sticks his neck out—both literally and figuratively. The secretaries have already passed, but his accuracy-senses implore him to call out anyway.

 

“You don’t mean the public Saudi Arabian oil and gas deal, do you?” he says. “With Rami ar-Rakah.”

 

They freeze, and Blackberry Secretary whips her head around so hard the other one gets smacked in the face by a wave of perfect brunette curls. Typing from adjacent cubicles stop immediately.

 

See, there’s an unspoken rule amongst the office drones of not interacting with the passers-through. It may endanger the flow of gossip, and _then_ what would they talk about at the water cooler on their 5 minute breaks on the hour?

 

Now Mike’s gone and done it. (If the passers-through stop gossiping, they’ll just talk about him, at least for a few days.)

 

Nevertheless, everyone wants to hear what’s to happen next.

 

“We don’t _want_ to secure that deal,” he continues, ignoring the curious silence within a 10-meter radius. “He obviously hasn’t got the goods.”

 

The secretaries are very close now, and Mike actually has to back up in his cubicle a bit.

 

“What do you mean _obviously?”_ Blackberry demands. “What are you talking about?”

 

Mike looks completely baffled, and a bit affronted.

 

“I do watch the news, you know,” he says, smoothing down his tie out of nervous habit.

 

“Details of this deal haven’t _made it into the news_ ,” she retorts, looking at him with—is that disgust? He really doesn’t think he’s done anything to warrant that.

 

Mike scoffs. “His father and uncle both may be among the top ten influential men in the energy industry, but that doesn’t mean much considering his venture is completely on his own.”

 

The secretaries’ eyes narrow, but Mike pushes on.

 

“He could barely keep eye contact throughout the whole interview, because he has something to hide. You could tell he’d been wearing the same clothes at least two days in a row, because he’s been on his own and up all night trying to salvage the situation. And it’s not getting any better. His son has a gambling problem and owes the Russians big. His wife has been cheating on him and any falling out in the public will result in her withdrawing her—well, her father’s, another top-10 oil baron—stake in the company,” Mike lists, on and on. “He’s barely holding on and has nothing to show for it. If we sign anything with him we’ll just be collateral.”

 

The first secretary is Googling things and sending off texts to her army of interns, trying to corroborate the facts.

 

“But they have proof of oil, tests, evidence of deposits, and so on,” she says, brows furrowed.

 

Mike sighs, gives her a sympathetic look. “And if you check very closely, you’ll probably realize that they match nearly exactly another oil field, which will come up for public bidding not long after evidence of his fraud comes out.”

 

“His uncle’s been looking quite optimistic in the press lately, almost certainly because their business is _actually_ going well, because it can’t be about the mistress who’s left him. And it wouldn’t have been too difficult for ar-Rakah to obtain a copy of his uncle’s preliminary oil field tests.”

 

The secretaries stand very still for a few moments, communicating furiously via eyebrows and the sort of telepathy secretaries tend to develop after working together for any extended amount of time.

 

“It makes sense,” one’s eyebrows says to the other’s. “He’s just making things up!” communicates the tightness of the lips back. And so on.

 

They turn back to Mike.

 

“Alright. We’ll take pass this information on, see if we can verify it,” the Blackberry one says. They’re both stone-faced. Mike knows that’s not what they’re going to do. They’re going to tell the Minister to delay, delay, delay, because it all sounds very convincing and realistic, and they’re going to come up with a perfectly diplomatic way to “postpone” matters until evidence comes to light and the deal falls apart on ar-Rakah’s end.

 

“Alright,” Mike says, instead of any of what he’s really thinking.

 

The secretaries promptly turn around and clack-clack-clack with their heels out of his cubicle, down the makeshift hallway between cubicles, and on their way through and out of the building.

 

Typing resumes.

 

☂☂☂

 

He learns, the next day, through the newspapers, that the meeting has been postponed, and the very busy minister is trying to find some time to pencil in the negotiations for next week.

 

Three days later (four days before the rescheduled meeting) ar-Rakah declares bankruptcy.

 

☂☂☂

 

_Come immediately!! SH_

 

Mike wakes up at a reasonable hour Saturday morning and sees a text from his brother. He decides to open the messaging app so his brother sees very clearly that the message has been read, and that Mike doesn’t give a shit about replying just yet. Then he makes himself pancakes and a strong cup of tea, and sits down for breakfast and the morning news.

 

_Mycroft!!!!! SH_

 

Mike wonders why his brother never calls. It can’t possibly be urgent if you’re still resorting to texts, can it? he wonders. Two exclamation marks is atypical but not unheard of for his younger brother. Four (or more) means there’s actual news worth hearing. So he picks up the phone…

 

...and it goes to voicemail.

 

_Why are you calling me?? Come to the office, I have news. SH_

 

Mike takes his time washing and drying his plate and mug before getting dressed at a leisurely pace, then heads out the door.

 

☂☂☂

 

Mike walks down a long and narrow hallway before knocking on the single door at the end of the path. The painted eye on the frosted glass of the door and dim lighting makes everything look more ominous.

 

Behind the door is the office to one Sherlock Holmes, London’s most famous private eye.

 

He knocks—

 

—but the door swings open before he gets a chance.

 

“Mycroft! Took you long enough,” his younger brother says, dragging him into the office by the arm. The whole space is dim and monochrome, and his brother is wearing some sort of weird deer-hunting cap even though he is indoors, because that’s Sherlock Holmes for you.

 

He fancies himself some sort of hard-boiled, film-noir detective from the heydays of black-and-white cinema. Mike knows there are cameras in the hallway so that he can look appropriately Noir when clients call upon him. He is all about Style.

 

Not that he is all flash and no substance, Mike readily admits. His brother Sherlock (William) is intelligent, and possesses one of the greatest minds he has had the honor of knowing (and that investigator license was the best thing that has ever happened to him, because he can also be a bit flippant when it comes to civil laws). It’s just that he’s also a younger sibling and can be a bit of a twit.

 

“Look!” Sherlock says, pushing something in his face once he’s manhandled him through the door.

 

It’s….a picture of Sherlock.

 

On a book.

 

“I’ve a book!” Sherlock says unnecessarily.

 

“I can see that,” Mike replies, a bit cross-eyed with the proximity.

 

“It’s finally out!” Sherlock adds, jumping a bit.

 

It’s actually all Sherlock had talked about for two weeks straight when the deal was first signed, but now it looks like they have the early proofs and Sherlock seems to approve. As he understands, it will be a trilogy series on _Sherlock Holmes, the Great Detective_ , based on real life and real cases, but with a heavily dramatized spin.

 

“We’re in talks to option the books for a movie,” Sherlock continues. “But I don’t want the screenwriter they have in mind. I want John Watson. He did that biopic about Turing, you know. And that college tech genius who went on to found that giant social media company. I liked that one. He’s very good.”

 

“Right,” Mike adds helpfully. After a beat he considers he was called here for a reason. “Oh, um. I’m very happy for you. Wonderful news, isn’t it? Picture turned out nice.”

 

Sherlock gives the cover another satisfied once-over, then decides that he’s going to do his brother a _huge_ favor and sign it for him. Because he is generous and caring like that.

 

Mike rolls his eyes but takes it with a only mildly sarcastic “thank you,” because he is generous and caring like that too.

 

Then Sherlock takes a seat at his very noir desk (there is an honest-to-God rotary telephone) and the brothers fall into easy conversation, Sherlock sharing some of the more interesting and exciting tidbits of his cases from the past week. Occasionally he runs theories by Mike, who doesn’t mind at all the mental exercise. He will also share about the duller cases he’s refused to take on. Then Mike will unfailingly berate him for his poor business sense and fret the way only family can.

 

“I’m working on a blackmail case and it’s all very strange,” Sherlock shares. “See the client has actually had face-to-face contact with the blackmailer, and we know perfectly well who he is and what information he claims to have. Except he’s yet to make any demands.”

 

Mike hums a bit, thoughtful, gears spinning in his mind, and Sherlock continues.

 

“My suspicion now is that he’s collecting similar levels of evidence for other instances of indiscretion amongst her circle and that whatever he’s planning will end up quite big, if seemingly unrelated,” Sherlock says.

 

“Ah. You mean he’s planning to sway the London Assembly votes then,” Mike concludes. “Your client’s a politician.”

 

Sherlock gives him a pointed look which means he can’t legally say.

 

“A politician’s wife, then,” Mike amends. “What’s coming up for a vote… The transportation budget? I’m not sure how discrete he really thinks he is.”

 

“Discrete to anyone but those with a working mind who understands logic,” Sherlock says with a sigh. “He owns”—he does a handwavy thing instead of saying—”properties around.”

 

“I see,” Mike says. What Sherlock means is that this blackmailer is in industries such as (construction and real estate) that will profit heavily if the Assembly vetoes the Mayor’s bill to start laying track for a new line 10 years down the road, and instead votes to expedite it. The value of the properties in the area will just skyrocket.

 

Sherlock sighs wistfully. “It’s a great deal more interesting than the _indiscretion_ I was hired to make go away.”

 

Mike hums noncommittally. Then frowns.

 

“Sherlock,” he says with warning in his tone.

 

“Hm?” Sherlock says as innocently as possible, which means he’s planning something very bad.

 

“Don’t do it,” Mike says.

 

“Do what?” Sherlock asks, wide-eyed and mock-innocent looking. It’s a stupid look for him.

 

“It sounds dangerous,” Mike retorts with some distaste.

 

Sherlock just rolls his eyes. Mike gives up.

 

“Just make sure your insurance covers everything imaginable. And call if you need...help.”

 

☂☂☂

 

The brothers debate and theorize through noon, after which Mike manages to wrangle the detective out of his cave for a late lunch, and they are stopped for autographs and selfies with Sherlock at least three times.

 

They part ways after that, though Mike has a niggling feeling that the transportation vote is not the end of it, and tells Sherlock as much. After all, there’s a piece of land in the vicinity of what the unnamed blackmailer owns as well, and although it is completely unnecessary in the transportation deal and isn’t zoned for anything useful, Mike knows the price of the land could skyrocket under the right circumstances.  

 

Then rest of his day is just as he likes it—uneventful.

 

The weather is surprisingly pleasant albeit a bit balmy and he takes the scenic route home. Then he has takeout for dinner, watches the evening news, reads a book, makes another cup of tea, does some more reading, before getting to bed.

 

Mike is just a normal guy.

 

☂☂☂

 

But then Monday comes around and Mike immediately knows something has changed.

 

Over the years, partly by necessity and partly because he is observant by nature, Mike has become something of an expert in silence. A sort of connoisseur of quiet.

 

And the kind of buzzed silence that a room of 40-odd gossips creates is a very distinct sound. It is _very_ similar, but not the same, to the kind of quiet you hear when you walk into a room full of people who were just talking about you and they suddenly stop.

 

No, this isn’t the silence of ostracization. This is tinged with apprehension. It means that something interesting has happened, and Mike is about to find himself involved.

 

Cautiously, he approaches his cubicle and sticks his head over the top instead of entering. There is a man in a three-piece suit leaning against his desk, fiddling with a phone in hand. His head snaps up upon sensing Mike’s presence.

 

“Ah! There you are,” he says without introduction.

 

He whips out a file and slaps it on Mike’s desk. Mike raises an eyebrow.

 

“Heard you have some insider information on the Saudis,” the man says, ignoring how Mike is trying to get his desk chair out from where the man is leaning.

 

“I have no insider information,” Mike says, and gets completely ignored.

 

“I’d like you to take a look at this contract for me—there are a few pages missing, I’m sure you’ll understand—and let me know what you think,” the man continues.

 

“‘What I think?’” Mike asks, deliberately opaque.

 

“Whether the numbers, the terms add up, that sort of thing. That’s what you all do here, is it? The numbers and things,” the man says. Mike pauses opening and flipping through the file and looks at him.

 

“‘The numbers and things,’” he repeats slowly, a bit disbelieving, but mostly insulting.

 

“Yes, I’ll have Janice come pick things up end of day. You remember Janice, don’t you?” He hops off Mike’s desk and is back on his phone, trying to sidestep Mike to get out of the cubicle. Mike puts himself squarely in front of the only exit.

 

“I’m sorry, who are you again?” Mike asks. He knows if he’s not direct now he’ll never get an answer. “Who is Janice, and what are these ‘numbers’?”

 

“Jonathan Cowl,” he says. He sort of puffs out his chest as he introduces himself, and then sticks out his hand for Mike to shake. Mike reluctantly does so.

 

“I have to apologize but that tells me absolutely nothing,” Mike says, satisfied that it doesn’t come out as dry as he thought it might.

 

Mr. Cowl gives him a beatific smile. “Assistant for the Secretary of State BEIS, and with the budget for public energy deals having just gone through, I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

 

Mike squints at him a bit, and then he’s gone.

 

After a few moments, once his footsteps are far, far away, Mike hears rustling in the distance and some clicking that indicates everyone is done eavesdropping and has gone back to work.

 

He takes a seat, slowly, still a bit confused. He supposes he might as well open the file to take a look. Energy sums indeed. Ah, a contract with a big petrol company, name redacted, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out this one. But he’s not a lawyer, so he’s not sure how he could possibly help. This is not his job. They’ve likely not informed his boss of this little request either.

 

Nonetheless, it doesn’t take long to read through the pages now that he’s curious. Very standard stuff, and the business details are a little out of his depth. But in between the lines of capitalism and legalese, he notices there is a tiny Micronesian island mentioned that couldn’t possibly be fit to transport as much cargo as the contract suggests it would need to.

 

He sighs and picks up the phone, pulling up the employee database and searching for a “Janice” under BEIS. There are three. He’s too lazy to Google the names to find a picture match. He scrolls until he sees the number for Jonathan Cowl instead.

 

“Mr. Cowl’s office,” a woman’s voice answers. It’s neither of the two women he spoke to about the oil deal last week.

 

“Yes, this is Mike Holmes from OBR, Mr. Cowl just left here. Please tell ‘Janice’ that the deal’s a dud,” he says. “That’s all.”

 

“Um. Alright,” the woman says, presumably making a note.

 

Mike hangs up, and resumes his regular work.

 

Janice comes clacking in a quarter to ten, not end of day, and apparently she was the one with the BlackBerry. Mike holds out the file to return to her, and she narrows her eyes at him.

 

“Explain,” she says, and he wonders whether everyone in the energy department is this callous. Perhaps when dealing with people from all over the world, one does not use manners.

 

Mike points out that the deal calls for the transportation of a great deal of petrol. Janice nods along. Mike points out that while the contract explicitly lists transportation among the processes that will not be delegated to third parties, they don’t have the in-house infrastructure to transport all that petrol.

 

Janice tells him to explain. Mike circles the offending island in the contract, along with the figures the government would be purchasing on a biannual basis, and underlines portions pertaining to transportation routes. It’s more than enough for her to get started.

 

“Use Google,” he says, and shoves the papers back at her. The callousness is already rubbing off. She narrows her eyes at him again, but clacks off without further question. She leaves her personal number this time. It also turns out her name was ‘Janine.’

 

By around 11 o’clock, another non-departmental soul has wandered their way to Mike’s cubicle. He covers by the entrance like a shade, typing away on his Blackberry like so many government assistants do, and then peeks over at Mike and asks in a curious-but-slightly-skeptical way, “So, what do you think of the Belgian elections?”

 

“‘What do I think of the Belgian elections,’” Mike repeats, turning around in his chair slowly, to come to face this new rude man who has yet to introduce himself.

 

“Yep. Like. Is there anything we should be worried about?” he asks.

 

“Can you be a little more specific?” Mike asks slowly.

 

“Well the coalitions are pretty well distributed so it doesn’t seem like any problematic parties will create a deadlock, but, just wondering,” he replies flippantly.

 

Mike just stares for a bit.  He wonders if he stares at the man long enough, if he will just go away.

 

The Belgian elections are just two weeks out, so campaigns have only just begun. Belgium’s political parties are many and fragmented, and Mike isn’t quite sure if this man is asking what he thinks he’s asking because aren’t things like these matters of national security or whatnot? Mike isn’t sure the man should be saying _anything,_ and certainly not to some pencil pusher like Mike.

 

Unfortunately for Mike, this man has no problem staring straight back. It makes him a bit uncomfortable, so Mike clears his throat, then pushes his pencil back and forth on his desk as he thinks on the elections.

 

“I suppose if we’d like to see more seats in the upstart New Flemish Alliance it would do some good to import more Belgian goods, and if we wanted them to usurp the Reformists, it may be good to dangle those deals over their heads until after the elections,” Mike muses.

 

“And if we’d like to put a cap on the Socialists?”

 

“Then you don’t want to make any waves in government,” Mike replies, baffled. “Any movement would be campaigned on immediately. Only go after the private sectors.”

 

The man seems to consider this for a moment, then leaves abruptly. Mike gapes after him. They’re all barbarians.

 

At noon, a blonde woman in a sharp suit comes by, with questions involving the conflict in the Middle East.

 

When Mike gets back from lunch half past 1, there's a man with horn-rimmed glasses sitting in his chair, saying something about the Russians.

 

After that, two people from Surveillance come in with a monitor and everything, and ask him to look at some footage.

 

“There's something unusual about the traffic patterns, but we can't figure out what it means.”

 

Mike ends up stopping a bank burglary that was only in the planning stages, resulting in the arrest of four professional criminals.

 

By 3 in the afternoon, he is getting mundane requests as well. Contracts, spreadsheets, and so on. It's not all international trade and national security.

 

“Hey, Mike, could you take a look at these numbers for me?”

 

Mike looks up to see pages of charts being waved in his face. His gaze goes up a bit more and he finds his cubicle-neighbor leaning up and over the partition.

 

“Barton, do your own paperwork,” Mike replies with a frown.

 

At 4 p.m., it all comes to a head.

 

“HOLMES,” he hears his name bellowed from down the hall. “IN MY OFFICE.”

 

☂☂☂

 

Mike is sitting in a very uncomfortable chair across from his supervisor, a balding, no-nonsense man with eerily good vision.

 

“Holmes, I’m gonna be frank with you,” Dirk Howard says. “We’re promoting you.”

 

“I should think not,” Mike says, offended, shifting a bit in his horrible chair.

 

“What,” Howard says, flat, in response.

 

“What,” Mike responds reflexively, out of nervousness.

 

Howard gives him a funny look and chooses to ignore Mike’s outburst. He picks up a stack of papers, presumably a contract, and tosses them on the desk toward Mike.

 

“You’ll be an assistant manager,” Howard explains half heartedly. “And likely manager in a month. And then an interdepartmental transfer. It’s protocol.”

 

Mike sputters.

 

“These—these _international liaisons_ have been circling my desk all day like, like piranhas! And you’re just _handing_ me over to them? No putting your foot down, not having it with other departments poaching your employees? What kind of manager are you?” Mike says.

 

Or, well, he doesn’t say. Because he’s British. Because it’s not polite. He sure as hell thinks it though. And it’s probably written all over his face.

 

“No,” he says instead, and it comes out a bit petulant.

 

Now Howard looks cross. So Mike decides to play the only card he has left.

 

“I am not, a, a people person,” he protests weakly. “If you make me a manager I will be too busy stressing over being a manager to do, do any of the. Things. That I’m good at.”

 

Howard stares him down.

 

“With the numbers,” he finishes with all the enthusiasm of a dying car.

 

They’re at a standstill, and it results in a stare-off, wherein Mike suspects they both start to sweat a bit. Mike has no intentions of being fast-tracked to joining an intelligence agency, and Howard is just a middle-manager with no real say over these things.

 

Finally, Howard picks up the phone and levels Mike a dry look.

 

“I’ll make a call,” he says.

 

Mike thanks him profusely (for _what?_ He doesn’t know) and makes his way out.

 

☂☂☂

 

Mike ends up with a modest raise but no required transfer and no promotion, so all in all, things are going well, he thinks.

 

☂☂☂

 

Mike goes home, has dinner, watches the evening news, does some reading, winds down for bed, does a bit more reading, and all in all has a very normal Monday night.

 

Then at 12:41,  the phone rings.

 

Confused and groggy, Mike reaches for his phone to answer, assuming mistakenly it might be his brother, before checking the caller iD.

 

“Hello?” he answers.

 

It’s Janine. She says something about the island. Mike did not sign up for this, and hopes this is a one time thing. He rattles off a few more clarifying answers to her questions, and then goes back to sleep.

 

At 2:03, the phone rings again.

 

“Hello?” Mike mumbles.

 

An important “embassy matter.” He takes the call but internally curses the fact that he brushed up on Nordic politics lately and can’t claim to be of no help here.

 

In fact, the puzzle presented is even a little bit intriguing.

 

At 3:32, Mike finds he can’t even sleep. He’s doing additional research on Sweden now. Forty minutes later, as he’s contemplating getting a cup of hot cocoa versus going back to bed, the phone rings yet again.

 

He picks it up without hesitation, but then stops himself before answering.

 

He’s gotten in way too far.

 

He answers it anyway.

 

☂☂☂

 

Mycroft Holmes is 5 years old and the first day of school starts off well enough. There is a rainbow in the sky and the teacher points out that it is because when it rains and then the sun comes out, a rainbow appears to let us know all is well.

 

Mycroft thinks he’s being helpful when he points out that is not all: the rainbow appears because light is being refracted through the lingering water molecules, the collected mist below the clouds, splitting what is usually white light to the naked eye into a spectrum of visible colors that demonstrate humans can only see a fraction of existence.

 

Miss Holliday gives him a tight smile and tells the class, _Isn’t Mycroft smart?_ and people snicker and he doesn’t yet know why.

 

By the end of the day, it’s gone down in Mycroft’s memory as something horrible. His name is too stupid and none of the kids will say it right, his body is too slow to play ball with the other children properly, and no one, not even the teachers, like how he keeps correcting everyone and everything.

 

Now there’s mud in his hair.

 

There’s mud in his hair and down the seat of his pants, because it rained the night before all the way through early morning and because children can be vicious on the playground, but there is also cake in the kitchen, and it makes everything better.

 

Mycroft is 6 and long suffering and heavy set and has absolutely zero friends because he’s a “smart-arse” and Mummy tells him he’s going to be getting a younger brother.

 

“Yeah well, maybe don’t give him a stupid name like Mycroft!” he yells before running into his room to have a huge sulk. He doesn’t even know what he’s really sulking over. His pants are too tight. Again.

 

☂☂☂

 

Mike buys himself two pastries the next morning, on his way to work, and then barricades himself in his cubicle with his filing cabinet. He only regrets it slightly when he has to get up to wash his hands a half hour later.

 

Then he sets to creating an orderly system for the _international liaisons_ to contact him through, because there ought to be some sort of way for him to screen calls. And he’s he’s done being surprised by strange men waiting for him in his cubicle, dammit. Various departments are already BCCing him by default on all emails, and he hopes to hell everything is secure.

 

He relays this all to Janine, stressing that it is a major security flaw if he’s to just advise on matters willy-nilly to any anonymous suit that shows up. She agrees, and a courier appears before noon bearing a cardboard box. There are three cell phones inside.

 

Janine also brings up the suggestion of using some identifying code phrases, and Mike shoots it down immediately. This is real life, not some spy film. He refuses to say things like "It is better for us to make friends, than to become the food of Crows or Vultures,” instead of “good morning.”

 

On Mike’s way out of the office that day, he sees a university flier on the bulletin board, advertising an open-to-the-public lecture on another proof of the Riemann Hypothesis. Mike takes down the details, and thinks he’ll go on Saturday for fun. He’s earned it.

 

☂☂☂

 

Saturday rolls around, and Mike has been looking forward to this. He even puts on a jaunty tie. He won’t say that his new tasks at work haven’t been interesting, but it puts him in a precarious situation, and he doesn’t care for it. He’s been starting to look over his shoulder, as if the neat and tidy life he’s constructed for himself might blow up at any moment.

 

The lecture is well-attended, and Mike has to remove his coat from the seat beside him for a couple, no doubt because this is one of the seven Millennium Problems, meaning there’s a million dollar prize in it for anyone who can supply a proper proof for any one of the theories, though confirming the proof itself can take up to two years. Besides, Mike thinks, mathematicians rarely take on one of these for the money. It’s the challenge itself that’s appealing.

 

He’s just glad he got here early enough to get a seat close to the front, where he’ll be able to read the whiteboard properly. The professor is surprisingly clean-cut, wearing shoes that are really rather fashion forward. If Mike hadn’t already seen a headshot of him from the flier, he might have also been taken aback at how young he is.

 

“Good morning everyone, my name is Professor James Moriarty, and no doubt half of you are here because someone told you there was a hefty prize for solving the Riemann hypothesis and you’re hoping the answer is something you can scribble down on a piece of paper,” the man on stage says in a soft, lilting voice, tacking on a little self-deprecating laugh. The audience appreciates a joke, and there are responding chuckles from throughout the auditorium. Mike cracks a smile as well. He’d been thinking the same thing.

 

“If you’re one of those, I can tell you now that unfortunately I don’t think I’ll even be able to fit it all on this whiteboard. And if you’re not, you’re probably one of the other half, who is interested in how this might help you mine bitcoins,” the professor continues. This gets even more laughs, and he turns to the audience with a smile.

 

“Now, the Riemann hypothesis, as you all know, posits that all prime numbers occur in this particular space and pattern,” he starts, drawing out the original formula on the board. “Because of the predictive nature of the hypothesis, it also lends itself to a great understanding of data mining.”

 

“This is where cryptocurrency mining comes in. How many of you have heard of Riecoinn? Ah, yes, many of you. Well, Riecoinn creates a program which mines for prime number constellations which results in cryptocurrency units, but it doesn’t either prove or disprove the hypothesis itself, because we’re focusing only on sextuplets…”  

 

The professor goes on to explain the conversion series and zeta functions, and how, supposing prime constellations of seven and higher digits could also efficiently result in mining bitcoin, a program could be written, in fact he is writing it, to prove the Riemann hypothesis at the same time. It is both functional and elegant, and suggests all kinds of far-reaching implications in terms of cybersecurity applications.

 

Mike is thoroughly enjoying his Saturday morning, when he hears the professor make an errant comment and speaks up before he realizes himself, so much he has been lulled into a soft and comfortable pace.

 

“Negative one,” he calls out, forgetting he is sitting three rows from the professor, in a room of nearly 400, as he takes some notes on a legal pad he brought along.

 

The quiet that follows is the worst kind; it is awkward, and everyone thinks poorly of him.

 

Professor Moriarty turns around and looks for the source of the correction, and Mike is trying desperately to shrink down into his seat. He thinks the professor is just about to move on, when instead his eyes land on him questioningly.

 

Mike swallows and bites the bullet.

 

“Sorry, I said, ‘negative one,’ you’d written one on the board in the line above, and I worried one of the students might copy it down wrong,” he says as a sense of dread washes over him.

 

Professor Moriarty follows the formula on the board backward with his finger until he finds the offending ‘1’ and says ‘aha!’, adding a dash right before it.

 

“Thank you, good catch, wonderful eye you have,” he says quickly, before moving on. The crowd moves on with him. Mike doesn’t know why he made such a big deal of it all.

 

Yet the heart palpitations and palm sweating don’t go away for another few minutes.

 

Noon rolls around and they all break for lunch. Mike gathers up his things and glances toward the front of the auditorium to see that the professor has hopped off the stage and is now chatting with some investor-type, with a bunch of academic-types hanging around hoping to get a word in.

 

He wonders if he should go up and apologize or say something, when he trips over a forgotten umbrella and his papers go everywhere. Worse, he lifts his head and nearly brains someone whose crouched down to help gather his thing.

 

“Oh! Oh, are you alright?” the person asks, and the voice in unmistakably the one he’s been listening to for the past two hours, except it somehow sounds more amused up close.

 

“Thank you,” Mike replies, accepting the papers handed him through his burning embarrassment. “I’m _terribly_ sorry about all this,” he says, and because he seems to have no filter, he adds, “First I interrupt your lecture with a silly slip of the tongue, then I trip all over your feet and interrupt your conversation. I’ll be out of your hair _instantly_ , I promise.”

 

The professor’s brown eyes crinkle up as he smiles and Mike wants the earth to open up and just _swallow him alive_. His face must be so red. He is so embarrassing.

 

“Hey, a minus sign gone astray could burn down the world in the right circumstances,” he jokes. “Not silly.”

 

“Um. Yeah,” Mike says intelligently. “Well. Thank you. For the papers. And the talk. It was a great presentation. I must be going now.”

 

He grabs his papers and runs. He doesn’t even come back for the last 45 minutes of the talk after the lunch break.

 

☂☂☂

 

MIke is sitting in Sherlock’s office, playing sounding board to his brother’s work.

 

“The blackmailer got to the last two of our Assembly members, Mycroft. That’s seven in hand, enough to secure the vote,” Sherlock says, as he assumes what they’ve dubbed ‘the thinking pose.’

 

“But there’s something different about this latest one victim?” Mike asks helpfully.

 

“It doesn’t match his methods for the rest,” Sherlock explains. “He spies and he bullies. He doesn’t crack digital safes and hack corporate servers.”

 

“Any chance the crime is unrelated?”

 

Sherlock adopts a bit of a frustrated look. “He’s gone so far as to take credit for it, practically. Evidently the leverage he has on each of these politicians is so personal and shameful he doesn’t even have to make a move or implicate himself to get what he wants.”

 

“Then why not do the same to him?” Mike muses.

 

Sherlock blinks out of his thoughts and looks at Mike, a bit surprised.

 

“I’m more for solving cases than preemptive revenge, brother mine,” he responds.

 

That much is very true, and has always been a source of solace for Mike, as an older sibling. Sherlock would much rather crack the puzzle than prevent it from being constructed in the first place. Mike is very glad his brother never took an interest in politics.

 

“Hm, yes, I see your point. Still, perhaps some leverage, or perceived leverage, could tempt him into implicating himself?” Mike adds.

 

Sherlock’s eyes lit up. “Ah. I could set a trap. He’ll think he has the remaining two votes in hand, when he doesn’t at all.”

 

“Be careful not to burn any bridges with your original client, Sherlock.”

 

“Yes, yes, don’t worry about that,” he says.

 

Mike just sighs. “I _always_ worry,” he says under his breath.

 

☂☂☂

 

Mike goes grocery shopping the next day, because he’s been eating out the entire last week and that has included way too many desserts.

 

He tells himself that if he only buys healthy ingredients, he will have no choice but to cook himself balanced meals. He tells himself this as he side eyes a package of chocolate biscuits really hard. So hard, in fact, that he continues down the aisle with his basket of produce and walks straight into another shopper, who evidently opted _not_ to use a basket.

 

Bread, a jar of peanut butter, and loose bananas fly everywhere in the resulting collision, and then apologies fly forth from both parties, profusely.

 

“I am _so_ sorry,” Mike says, reaching for some bananas on the floor that must now be bruised, to hand back to the poor shopper he’s just knocked over.

 

He doesn’t expect to get laughed at in response, and his eyes go wide as he recognizes who it is.

 

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” professor Moriarty says.

 

“You must have the oddest impression of me,” Mike says wryly, handing him the bread as well. It’s only very lightly smushed.

 

“Oh on the contrary, I’m very intrigued now,” the professor says lightly. “The odds of two head-on collisions within two days can’t be that high. You might’ve just inspired my new paper, on the probability of pedestrians and awkward interactions.”

 

“I apologize,” Mike says again, mortified. “ _Truly._ ”

 

Professor Moriarty searches his face for a moment and Mike thinks maybe even he’s run out of lighthearted things to say to diffuse Mike’s embarrassing nature, but then he asks,

 

“Do you want to go for a coffee sometime?”

 

“Um. Sorry?” Mike’s head snaps toward him, shocked. The professor’s expression immediately closes off.

 

“No, no, I’m sorry,” he says, waving it off. “I must have misread--”

 

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean--” He’s turning red again.

 

“Ehm. Is that a yes then?”

 

“What?” It comes out a little strangled.

 

“Coffee? Wednesday around 11, maybe?”

 

Mike does an impression of a goldfish and opens and closes his mouth a few times, then nods, emphatically.

 

Professor Moriarty tucks his groceries under his arm awkwardly and then offers Mike his hand to shake.

 

“James,” he says. “James Moriarty. That was a bit forward of me, my apologies, asking you out when I haven’t even asked your name.”

 

“I know—” Mike says, before trying to backtrack immediately. “Your name, I mean, not. Nevermind. Mike Holmes.”

 

“Mike?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Very nice to meet you, Mike.”

 

They trade numbers and Mike even manages to compliment James on his proof again, except without sounding like a total twit this time.

 

He smiles all the way home.

 

☂☂☂

 

Coffee is wonderful, and Mike realizes how much he’s needed a reprieve from sorting through European Union politics.

 

“It’s nice to talk to someone who actually laughs at my horrible math puns,” James jokes.

 

The light discussion has been a lot of fun, and Mike realizes James must be in a similar position. Discussing math, in work, means for him arguments with board members to stress the importance of funding the department and research, or explaining to graduate students why they are completely off track, or, more recently, explaining to investors that he doesn’t have some magical bitcoin mining miracle to sell to them.

 

Mike asks how he got into this area of study, and James look contemplative for a long moment.

 

“Pure math is beautiful in its abstraction,” he says. “It’s elegant. But applied mathematics, is, well, I guess it’s power.”

 

Mike agrees, and adds that he’s partial to pure math himself, and James gives him a sort of indulgent smile.

 

They make plans for lunch in two days, and then after that, they attend a wine tasting a local gallery.

 

Mike is meandering his way through a farmer’s market that is slightly out of the way for him one weekend after that, and runs into James who is scrutinizing the eggplants.

 

He’s rewarded with a huge smile when he decides to go up and say hello, and then James invites him over for dinner.

 

“I’ve only just moved here this semester, and the boxes in my apartment had just been sitting there for weeks. I’ve finally finished unpacking everything meant to go in the kitchen,” he explains, as they shop for vegetables. “So, I’m cooking.”

 

“That explains your grocery list last time we bumped into each other shopping, not having a functional kitchen,” Mike says.

 

James grins at him. “Observant, aren’t you?”

 

They knock shoulders and stroll along through the market like total saps, and eventually the walk leads to James’s place. He’s subleasing a townhouse from a kind old woman who owns the building but can’t bear the strain of the stairs on her knees, he explains, and gives Mike a quick tour.

 

Discussing favorite theorems and coming up with increasingly convoluted applications for them in everyday is surprisingly entertaining, if only for the two of them, and time flies by as they talk over food prep and journals and at some point they end up with formulas scribbled all over paper towels on the counter and dining table, dishes unwashed, the two of them having tried to actually discover the probability of awkward interactions amongst pedestrians, when the conversation turns more to chemistry and psychology because to find this formula they have to first define ‘awkward,’ and Mike realizes halfway through theorizing attraction versus repulsion that the two of them have gotten very close.

 

Very, very close.

 

He can see the flecks of black in the chocolate brown of James’s eyes and he knows it’s just the uneveness of the human iris but to him it looks like shards of space and unfathomable depths and he forgets what he was saying.

 

James doesn’t seem to remember either, settling for pressing his mouth to Mike’s lightly.

 

Then he says, “I guess we never finished that tour,” and Mike’s brain is all question marks and misfired synapses.

 

"Do you want to see the bedroom?”

 

☂☂☂

 

“OH-- FUCK--”

 

The headboard slams into the wall but Mike is too far gone to worry about property damage as he shoves the damn thing against the plaster again and again as James slams into him repeatedly with such abandon that he must not really mind either.

 

Mike will later consider the foresight in the excruciatingly slow way James prepped him; fingers teasing as they kissed for what felt like forever. It had been a while, for him, and now he was dizzy with something that felt light and fluttery when he finally pushed one finger in, and positively clinging to the man when he finally, _finally_ pushed in a second one, peppering his face, his neck, down to the collarbone, not wanting to stray so far as to lose sight of his expression, with kisses of every kind.

 

He came the first time while James was still lazily scissoring him open, using so much lubricant he was leaking everywhere, that he felt like he was melting. He shivers as it occurs to him he recognizes the pattern of the rhythm as James fingers and pumps him, three fingers now, through the first orgasm, watching him hungrily the entire time. It’s too much. Mike grabs him by the face with both hands and pulls him down for the most desperate kiss he has ever given.

 

“Please,” he whispers, so completely wrecked he doesn’t know if the word is audible and James presses down again to kiss him fiercely, biting his lips, hard, before he pulls back.  He throws Mike over on his stomach, then, and enters his pliant body, beginning to thrust before Mike can manage to prop himself up.

 

It’s electric, and he screams when James sinks his teeth into his shoulder.

 

James, he reflects, is very good at planning.

 

☂☂☂

 

Sherlock calls Mike the next weekend, while he’s sitting at a cafe across from James. It’s so unusual of his little brother that Mike has to pick up.

 

“Sorry, I probably should get this,” he tells James, who looks curious, not put out.

 

“Sherlock?” he answers, in lieu of a snarky jibe about how often he _doesn’t_ call, because the probability that this is important is high.

 

Mike is completely wrong, of course.

 

“ _Mycroft_ ,” his brother whines. “It’s _John Watson._ ”

 

“I don’t understand,” Mike replies, in hopes this will prompt his brother to use the English language properly.

 

“He has a book signing today and this is my best chance of my getting to convince him _personally_ that he should write my movie, and I have _nothing to wear_ ,” Sherlock says. He definitely has Mike on speakerphone. He is pacing around his flat with shirts all over the bedroom, a complete mess.

 

“Goodbye, Sherlock,” Mike says.

 

“Oh, is that your brother?” James asks.

 

Mike gives him a long suffering look, and James smiles.

 

“Will I get to meet him?” James adds lightly.

 

“Mycroft! Are you on a _date?_ ” Sherlock demands.

 

“Yes,” Mike answers by mistake, and both James and Sherlock perk up.

 

“Oh? What does he like? We could invite him over…” James starts to think, tapping his finger on the table.

 

“I want to meet him. Come to the White Cat bookshop and cafe, that’s where the book signing is, and bring this mystery lover of yours, and you can help me convince John Watson I am a genius worth preserving on the silver screen for posterity,” Sherlock says.

 

“Mystery—” Mike sputters. He doesn’t know who to answer first.

 

“I will be there at 1 p.m.,” Sherlock says. “Should I wear the navy or purple shirt?”

 

“Purple,” Mike answers, and then Sherlock hangs up without so much as a goodbye.

 

Mike gives James a questioning look, not yet having put the phone down. James blinks back at him.

 

“How much of that did you hear…?” Mike asks.

 

“Not much,” James says, and sets his phone down. Mike sets his phone down. Then James adds, “Mycroft.”

 

Mike balks.

 

James grins in a way that tells him he’s not letting this go. Mike decides to table that particular line of questioning.

 

“Is 20 minutes too short notice?” Mike asks hesitantly. “My brother wants me to meet him at a book signing, and to bring you along. If you’d like. You can say no.”

 

James, of course, does not say no. He smiles and says he’d love to go, and even takes his hand as they walk together, and the whole thing is so much sweeter than anything Mike ever thought he would experience that he’s not quite sure all this is real. Maybe it will be good that they’re going to meet Sherlock. Sherlock doesn’t quite live in a world that seems real at times, either, but at least it will be good to get a second opinion.

 

When Mike and James arrive at the bookshop, Mike finds his brother standing outside the store, face close to the window, pining like a romantic drama heroine. He even sighs wistfully at the sight before him, as they approach.

 

“Sherlock,” he calls out, waving a bit.

 

Sherlock, the little brat, only tosses them a disinterested glance before turning his gaze back to inside the store.

 

Mike refuses to sigh, and instead makes introductions.

 

“Sherlock, this is professor James Moriarty, who I’ve been seeing. James, this is Sherlock Holmes, private eye, and the bane of my existence,” he says politely.

 

Sherlock scowls and James grins, offering his hand to shake, which Sherlock does immediately.

 

“Hm you’ve only recently moved here; close to my brother’s age, except much more ambitious. No serious relationships in the last several years, but, ah, many not serious ones, hm. No pets, though you’ve several houseplants—”

 

“A few herbs on the windowsill,” James interjects easily, unaffected by Sherlock’s deductions. Mike wants to slap his hand over his face.

 

“ _Sherlock_ ,” he says instead, and James only grins and knocks shoulders with him.

 

“I don’t mind,” he says. “I see it runs in the family.”

 

Sherlock narrows his eyes at that, and Mike decides he should change the subject before anything more embarrassing comes up.

 

“Let’s go inside, shall we? Sherlock, whatever are you doing standing outside if your aim was to court this famous writer and there’s already a line forming?”

 

Sherlock sulks some more. “I was thinking up a way to impress him,” he says.

 

Mike opens the door and ushers them in before Sherlock can propose a big, convoluted plan and rope him and James into playing out parts. Sherlock scowls again, at Mike, because he knows what he’s doing.

 

Once inside, they get in line, and Sherlock starts rattling off all the reasons why John Watson would be the perfect writer for his project to James, who nods along attentively.

 

“Oh, I remember, he did that Turing biopic, didn’t he? I loved that movie,” James comments.

 

It occurs to Mike that this is a book signing and none of them have a copy of John Watson’s new book, a noir thriller that culminates in a murder mystery on the high seas. He sighs and slips away to purchase three copies, stepping back in line before either Sherlock of James misses him. It would look very silly of them otherwise.

 

Mike’s surprised. It’s so unlike Sherlock to flounder like this.

 

They arrive at the table where Watson is sitting, and Mike tries to hand Sherlock a copy of one of the newly purchased books, only to get ignored.

 

Instead, Sherlock whips out a copy of his _own_ book, the one based on him, and set it down on the table in front of John Watson.

 

“Em,” the writer says, looking between the book and the man before him. The picture on the over is unmistakably him.

 

“I’ve a pitch for you,” Sherlock says. “Write the movie adaptation to my story.”

 

“Um,” the writer tries again. “Sorry, you brought me _your_ book to _my_ book signing…?”

 

Sherlock whips his coat out behind him dramatically as he sticks hand out for John Watson to shake, who does so a bit reluctantly.

 

“Sherlock Holmes, private eye extraordinaire,” he introduces himself. Then he grabs a copy of one of Watson’s book from the stack Mike is holding, and opens it up to the front.

 

“I love your work, but I haven’t read this yet, for the sole purpose of this meeting,” Sherlock says, as he scans the first couple of pages.

 

“Um?” Watson is completely lost.

 

“I’ve skimmed the first chapter now, and I can tell you who the killer is,” Sherlock says.

 

John Watson is slightly taken aback, Mike is half considering pulling Sherlock away, and James seems highly entertained.

 

“I think I’d prefer you not give away spoilers here,” Watson says, trying for a light tone, but sounding still very confused.

 

Sherlock, undeterred, just leans down to whisper an elaborate explanation in the writer’s ear.

 

His eyes go wide and he snaps backwards a little, staring at Sherlock Holmes, who now looks a bit smug.

 

“Should I be insulted about being predictable?” Watson asks, and Sherlock’s face falls immediately.

 

“Not at all, the drive, the drama, it’s all in the plot, and how it plays out. You are the single most capable living dramatist I can think of, and I propose that I am a sufficiently intriguing character capable of carrying out the most complex of stories. We must work together, I insist it,” Sherlock says, placing his card down on top of his book before the writer.

 

John Watson is speechless for a moment, then thumbs through Sherlock’s book absent-mindedly for a bit.

 

“Murder mysteries are good and all,” he starts slowly, “but the trend is really toward sci-fi and cybercrimes and that sort of thing, down in Hollywood.”

 

“There’s a reason my new book is a book and not a movie,” he jokes a bit hesitantly.

 

Sherlock still looks determined.

 

“Crime stories are, at heart, very human stories,” he says. “We should talk more. Would you be amenable to catching up tomorrow over coffee?”

 

Watson looks up at him for a long moment, then startles as he looks at Mike and James, forgetting there were other bystanders.

 

“I’ll have to talk to my agent,” the writer settles on.

 

Sherlock looks spectacularly disappointed, and sweeps off in a very dramatic fashion. Mike opts to stay to get the books signed, pasting on a forced smile. Watson does the same.

 

“Well, he’s certainly gutsy, your brother,” James whispers to him.

 

☂☂☂

 

Sherlock spends the next three days reading everything he can about cybersecurity and becomes practically an expert.

 

Sherlock plans to use this newfound knowledge to wow the famous writer, he explains in a flurry of texts to Mike, and he seems very excited because the writer has agreed to shadow him on a case as something of a pre-interview.

 

Mike never said his little brother wasn’t smart, just that he can be a total diva.

 

A very important banker has been charged for embezzlement, and it’s all over the news. It’s easy to believe he is guilty, as Mike watches an interview, and he is indeed guilty of many questionable things, but this particular case of embezzlement is not one of them.

 

What an odd framing, he thinks. Sherlock is bound to have a lot of fun with this one. It’s private-sector stuff, so Mike suspects it’s very unlikely he will have to get involved.

 

“The best part is,” Sherlock says with barely contained enthusiasm, “there are so many people with motive that it could be any one of them.”

 

For the armies of lawyers and detectives on this case, it is a nightmare. For Sherlock, it’s pageantry. The more convoluted the crime, the more dramatic the reveal. And if he times it right, he’ll have solved the case before he’s to meet with John Watson’s agent, and they will both have already been very impressed with his work.

 

☂☂☂

 

Mike’s personal life has gotten comfortably saccharine, but work gets a bit weird after that.

 

England has, he realizes, her fingers in a lot of pies. A lot of very weird pies. Some that sound downright unappetizing, even, and he’s not sure what business she has being in there.

 

Mike has, for the past few weeks, been rapidly accumulating information (intelligence—he might as well call it what it is) about their great nation’s various international dealings, because various departments have realized that, given the right information, Mike can make connections faster than any of their own analysts, always accurately, and often makes connections no one else has thought to.

 

It helps, perhaps, that the information flow is interdepartmental, and he points this out, but Janine waves it off. Says he’s still quicker than the others she has on payroll. She has become something like a liaison between him and the rest of The Government.

 

But it makes Mike a bit wary of the efficiency of everything. He supposes it makes sense; even with his raise, he is much cheaper to employ than, say, MI5. So he does a little more digging, which is not hard, now that he has access to basically any database he likes.

 

That’s when it gets weirder. There are spy networks within spy networks, from what he can understand, and what is England even doing in Serbia?? He finds meddling in corners in the world where the British Empire has no discernable stake, and it’s not like it isn’t _interesting_ to some degree, but it’s all _awfully_ inefficient.

 

Mike is horrified. Is this where the budget is going? Is this where people’s taxes are going? Is this where _his_ taxes are going?

 

He has to sit down, he thinks, before he remembers he is already sitting down.

 

He’s still feeling a bit dead inside when one of his phones rings and it’s Janine.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Mike, would you have a minute to come to a meeting?” she asks, though he knows she’s not so much asking as she is informing.

 

“Um, yeah,” he replies.

 

“Good,” Janine says briskly, rattling off a series of directions without so much as a pause or ‘do you have a pen?’ or ‘here’s where you’re going to go.’

 

What she gives him is less of an address and more of a series of turns and go’s through the labyrinth that is public office and eventually he ends up inside the right corridor inside the right building, coat still on and phone in hand.

 

He pushes open the designated door and it opens into a little receptionist’s office, completely unmanned. There are two doors within the room, one which looks like, and does, lead to a more senior government official’s private office. The other looks like it leads to a supply cabinet, but from the layout of the building, plus Janine’s instructions, Mike knows this is not the case.

 

He turns the knob, and then enters to discover it is actually a rather spacious conference room, with an ominous looking, round (oval, not circular, but close) table around where many of the assistants he has been corresponding with are already seated.

 

Mike looks behind him at the closed door and then back to the group, then back at the door, hand still on the knob, as if he still has time to go back through the door to reality if he so pleased. He knows this is merely wishful thinking. He is in far too deep. The assistants will not let him leave alive.

 

“...hello,” he eventually manages to say. His voice cracks on the first syllable and he has to clear his throat so it comes out more like “hi-AHEM-LLO,” but all is well, their expressions seem to say. They beckon him closer and he very reluctantly allows his hand to drop from the knob.

 

“Come, take a seat,” says three-piece suit, the one who asked about Belgium that first day. Mike learns his name is Mark Walker.

 

And there’s Janine, right next to him. And ol’ Jonathan Cowl. And Harold Sprightly who asked about the Russians. And Margaret Radcliffe, who asked about terrorists in the Middle East. There is someone who introduces himself as Aaron Jason and a woman named Vera Firth, and he gathers that they’re all officially secretaries and assistants, but in reality much, much more.

 

“I’m sure by now you’ve realized that we’re much more than the titles on our name cards,” Walker says.

 

He goes into a bit of a grand historical spiel, starting from 2005 terror attacks and the need to create networks within networks, contingency plans on top of contingency plans, and oversight. He ends with the idea that the ministers and cabinet members are politics, figureheads really, and that the actual running of the Government (the capital G is very important here) must be done by those who can and will avoid scrutiny.

 

Walker then introduces himself as the head of operations in this area, and the Walker Mike met several days ago would have done this while straightening his lapels, not quite preening but almost there. This Walker is serious and unaffected and practically a different person.

 

Wow, Mike thinks. Your incompetent act was really convincing, he thinks, it really was, you really sold it. He only vocalizes the first part.

 

“Wow,” Mike says, without any real enthusiasm.

 

“You’ve likely also already deduced the reason we’ve asked you here,” Janine chimes in. “Essentially, you have already been acting as the storage and processing of highly sensitive information. That you are not only able to recall the necessary and important portions on demand, but make connections we might not have thought to have asked for, is an asset.”

 

So I’m like Google, except low-key, Mike thinks, a bit cynically.

 

Cowl gives Mike another one of his beatific smiles.

 

“Before you go thinking that you’re just some glorified search engine,” he says, “know that there is one major difference.”

 

“You cannot be hacked the same way,” he continues, “when nobody knows you exist.”

 

☂☂☂

 

Sherlock sends Mike random texts about securities fraud and the Dark Web and Mike supposes this is his way of taking notes as he continues to devour the entirety of the subject matter in what would normally take mere humans years. He hopes to hell Sherlock isn’t making his coffee with energy drinks in lieu of water again.

 

Which is why he’s expecting another cybersecurity factoid when he picks up his phone to read the newest text. It’s not.

 

It’s a text from James, just an image.

 

He opens it up to see a snapshot of a little equation. He gets a second text a moment later, which is a ciphered phrase. He sorts out the equation quickly, then uses it to decipher the coded text message.

 

_Dinner?_

 

At least, he assumes the divided by 0 is a stand in for a question mark. Cute. Mike fiddles with his pencil for a moment before composing a similar equation and coded message to send back.

 

☂☂☂

 

Later, James has been reduced to a puddle, lying curled up against Mike’s side, having moments before climaxed hard enough that he seems to not have retained much speech function. It then occurs to Mike that the name James screamed, while convulsing around his tongue, was not “Mike,” but “Mycroft.”

 

He’s not sure how to feel about it yet.

 

Instead he draws circles and fragments on James’s shoulder with his fingers, and they lay there peaceably. He can feel James smile into his chest.  

 

After some moments, James tilts his head and asks, “What’s a smart cookie like you doing working in government anyway?” The words are a bit slurred.

 

Mike chuckles a bit at that.

 

“Believe it or not, I think there is less politicking where I am in administration than there is where you are in academia,” he says.

 

“Hmmm.”

 

“All the diplomacy and deceit, I’m not sure I have the stomach for all that,” Mike muses.

 

“Public office is so silly,” James responds, a bit breathless, and caps it off with a yawn.

 

“Everyone knows all the money is in the private sector,” James mumbles, drifting a bit. “And all the CPU.”

 

Mike cracks a smile. “Working on your crypto-mining software even in your sleep?”

 

James shakes his head, closing his eyes.

 

“S’all done now. Mines _everything_. Great data. All the passwords,” he mumbles.

 

Mike is very careful not to move, as he’s pretty sure James is asleep. His fingers continue drawing circles a minute longer, then he very slowly, very gently, leans down to press a kiss to the top of James’s head, and follows him into the realm of dreams shortly after.

 

☂☂☂

 

“There is a money laundering scheme going on through the biggest grocery chain in the country, I am sure of it,” Sherlock says, and Mike is staring blearily at his bedside clock, wondering what alternate dimension he has fallen into.

 

“Sherlock…?” he asks hesitantly. Maybe this dimension’s Sherlock actually goes by his given name and he’s just given himself away.

 

“I don’t yet know _who_ or _why,_ but I do know how,” Sherlock ambles on.

 

Mike pulls his phone away from his ear to look at the screen. Yep, that’s Sherlock on the other end of the line. Except, his brother never calls. That it is 4 in the morning makes it seem a bit more plausible though. If Sherlock were to call, he would choose a horrible time. He puts the phone back to his ear.

 

“Why are you calling?” he asks, worried. He can practically hear Sherlock scowl from over the phone.

 

“I have a meeting with John Watson again this afternoon, and I’ve got to work out more of the details to be able to present a sufficiently interesting reveal for him, _obviously,_ ” Sherlock responds.

 

“Obviously,” Mike parrots dubiously.

 

“The how is this, brother mine: money is being digitally funneled through these grocery stores from a modicum of megacorporations, and after that the bits just sort of blink out of existence, disguised by the data of individual transactions,” Sherlock continues.

 

“Alright,” MIke says, playing along. “And how do you know this?”

 

“I know this because, as a exercise to see if I understood the contents of all I was reading the past week, I hacked into the Aldi’s two blocks away,” Sherlock said.

 

“Uh-huh,” Mike replied hesitantly.

 

“And I noticed that the amount of data in each transaction for the past two weeks has been of a significantly different pattern than prior to that. I went back 12 months, and there is a stark difference between the last 13 days and everything before that,” Sherlock continued. “These transactions are being used to cover for something. I then looked at another store, and another, and a similar pattern has occured in each one, ranging from 10 to 15 days back.”

 

Mike stares at the ceiling as he listens.

 

“And you’re saying this...added data, it resembles what, missing, or identical data, to these megacorporations you are deducing have been stolen from?” he asks.

 

“No, I haven’t yet checked, but where else could it be taken from in such volume?” Sherlock replies.

 

Mike thinks for a moment. Social media companies and their megaservers. Defense departments. Megacorporations too, sure.

 

“You best consult a cybersecurity expert,” Mike muses.

 

Sherlock huffs a sigh and says, rapid-fire, “I’m going to go do more research,” before hanging up.

 

Mike scoots back down on his bed and wriggles a bit to sink back under the covers. His phone lights up with a text, then two, then three. He squints at them.

 

Some lines of code from Sherlock, and a short explanation. An example of the extra data accompanying each grocery store transaction. He’ll look at it later.

 

☂☂☂

 

Bitcoin mining is, essentially, going at encryption code, in general, with a sledgehammer. Repeatedly. Endlessly. Brutally.

 

And it’s only getting more sophisticated and efficient, Mike muses, as he skims the notes his brother has sent and compares them to his own notes he took during James’s lecture a few weeks ago. Mike remembers taking a vague and mild interest in Bitcoin when it first came out, and even a clumsy little mining program to run on an unused computer just to see if it would work. It might be sitting in a closet in his childhood home, he thinks, no longer working or able to keep up with the much more sophisticated methods employed today.

 

We must be lucky, he thinks, that these miners are directing all of their energies to mining more currency, because the same principles and software structures—discovering prime number constellations, for example—become very, _very_ useful in decrypting many other things.

 

Like un-anonymizing datasets. Like decrypting private files and correspondence. Like obtaining _all the passwords._

 

Mike takes a look at Sherlocks most recent texts, the extra data from the grocery store conspiracy, and realizes it looks awfully familiar.

 

Except.

 

No, it couldn’t be.

 

Mike’s eyes drift over slightly to the left, and land on a piece of scrap paper where he penciled in an equation just a few days ago. The equation is almost most definitely the last part of a much bigger formula, sent only for the purpose of creating a simple cipher used to create a cute message.

 

It looks eerily similar to the tail end of what might have been employed in the datasets Sherlock sent.

 

☂☂☂

 

“It’s not that the grocery store transactions are being used to mask cashflow, brother mine, it’s that your every purchase at your local Aldi’s is helping someone mine cryptocurrency,” Mike says, drumming his fingers atop Sherlock’s vintage desk.

 

Sherlock considers this for a moment, then sinks back into his seat.

 

“Unorthodox, perhaps, but not unheard of,” he says. “Even Tesla got hacked for that purpose.”

 

“But no security cloud company is going to be looking into a common grocery chain to see if it’s been hacked,” Sherlock continues. “It’s not nearly as sexy.”

 

“You only found it by accident,” Mike agrees.

 

Sherlock jumps up, starts pacing, and Mike knows an idea is forming, but he has other pressing questions.

 

“And whatever happened to that embezzlement case?” Mike asks. He hopes his brother isn’t foregoing paychecks in a quest to secure this movie deal. “Or that politician blackmailer?”

 

“They’re connected, Mycroft!” Sherlock is exasperated now. “Don’t you see? That’s why I’ve been jumping from case to case, they’re all related. Oh, sitting behind a government desk has really rotted that brain of yours.”

 

Mike decides this is a very good time to not reveal anything about his new tasks at work to his brother.

 

“Fine,” he says instead. “Enlighten me.”

 

So Sherlock does, evidently seeing this as a good rehearsal for his big reveal to John Watson and John Watson’s agent.

 

☂☂☂

 

The zoning vote takes place the next day.

 

Most of the Assembly members had already publicly announced whether they would be voting one way or the other. One group supported the Mayor’s plan to start laying track in 10 years. The other group was pushing for the construction to begin earlier, as soon as possible, once the environmental reports were done (which was estimated to take only a few months).

 

There are just 10 swing votes in place, and real estate magnate Charles Augustus Magnussen needs exactly 7 secured votes at _minimum_ in order for things to go his way. He already had 5, including Lord Smallwood’s, Sherlock explains to his client, Lady Alicia Smallwood.

 

She gives Sherlock a tight smile and explains that, as _she is his client,_ she already _knows all of this._

 

The smile turns to a gasp of awe as Sherlock produces an envelope that must contain the illicit photos Magnussen has of her husband in a very compromising position with a very compromising person.

 

“These are the only copies left,” Sherlock adds.

 

She checks inside and sneers in disgust upon seeing the photos, but promptly writes Sherlock Holmes a check anyway.

 

“I must ask you for another favor,” Sherlock adds.

 

Smallwood gives him a funny glance, having wanted to leave immediately, but nods.

 

“What is it?” she asks.

 

“Please advise your husband to still vote to expedite the plan,” Sherlock replies.

 

Her eyes widen.

 

“Worry not; Magnusson has yet to find that the photos are missing, but that is not the only reason. There will yet be revenge,” he says.

 

Smallwood purses her lips, but then nods once. “Alright, consider it done,” she says, before dashing out the door.

 

After she leaves, John Watson steps in.

 

“How did you do it?” he asks.

 

“And there is the million dollar question,” Sherlock responds, puffing himself up a bit.

 

It’s the question he was expecting, was hoping to hear, though he knew his client didn’t really care enough of the intricacies and work involved to ask. In fact, most investigators advise their clients _not_ to ask, so as to not implicate themselves in any shady or less-than-legal activity.

 

Sherlock dramatically takes a seat and kicks a leg up on one knee. The screenwriter looks suitably interested, and this lighting through the window does wonders for him.

 

“Magnusson had 5 assembly members under his thumb at the time I was hired,” Sherlock explains. “And was working on the last two. Days later, he obtained images from their private devices that no one should have been able to access without obtaining the devices themselves. One had their very secure personal phone hacked. The other had trade secrets stolen via his brother’s personal office down in the financial sector.”

 

Sherlock paused for both dramatic effect, and the expected question.

 

“But what does it all mean?” Watson asked.

 

Eh. Could’ve phrased it better, but it would do.

 

“Yes, well,” Sherlock went on. “Magnusson’s m.o. has up until now been—old school. Stalking. Telephotography. Even creating the situations himself wherein compromising photos could be taken, if need be.”

 

“He had to have hired someone to hack these politicians,” he continued. “I knew this had happened because, under the guise of one waiter and one valet, I had the chance to ‘interview’ these last two Assembly members. Magnusson had been looking decidedly content the day before, which alerted me that something had changed.”

 

Watson looked at the detective in awe for a moment, so he struck a pose, steepling his fingers together contemplatively, and carried on.

 

“What I discovered was that they were worried, and had in fact gotten new phones, which only confirmed my theory. But who was this hacker for hire?” Sherlock mused. “I set about a plan to obtain the old phones myself, but in the meantime, I had to stop Magnusson the day before the vote.”

 

“I sent him a suitably ominous and anonymous message offering dirt on two more swing voters, the way the hacker for hire might have. Except, for payment, I wanted the images my client so requested,” Sherlock said.

 

“After that, it was just a matter of watching Magnusson, and his actions gave everything away,” Sherlock finished triumphantly.

 

“But how?” Watson asked. “He made the trade?”

 

“Of course not,” Sherlock said. “He is the type of man who thinks one in hand is better than two in the bush, and wasn’t about to give up his leverage of a very important Assembly member for two more that he didn’t _a hundred percent_ need, especially not from an anonymous source.”

 

“No, what Magnusson did instead was message his secretary immediately, and from that I knew exactly where he had hidden my client’s photographs.”

 

“You see, I had seen the secretary carry a pair of sunglasses around in her purse, despite the fact that her route is such that she never faces the sun long enough that she would think to need them. Except, every day at 10 she has to run an errand, and the harsh, direct sunlight would otherwise irritate her rather sensitive eyes on the way to a particular university library.”

 

“This is where Magnusson, a small donor and alum of just one year, keeps a safety deposit box,” Sherlock said with a smile. “Once I located it, it was no hardship to crack.”

 

Watson looks a bit lost now. “Erm. Okay. I’m sure it would have all made a lot of sense had I been there.”

 

Sherlock is shocked and disappointed.

 

“Isn’t quite the same, is it, only hearing the reveal, when you haven’t been on the twist and turns of the journey yourself,” Watson muses. Sherlock thinks very hard about this.

 

“That’s...true, I suppose,” he admits, still racking his brain for ways to add color.

 

“In any case,” he hurries to add, “after I obtained the photos to return to my client, there still left the problem of  stopping the vile blackmailer. There was only one thing to do.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“I had to let the vote go through,” Sherlock said.

 

“Let the!” Watson is shocked, in a bad way. “That’s why you told her to still vote yes…”

 

“Correct,” Sherlock replies, standing up.

 

“As of now, Magnusson thinks he has won. Except his safe of incriminating evidence has been emptied, and he won’t realize until tomorrow at 10, when his secretary goes by to check on it, and he will by then be at the public hearing to witness the vote that has already passed in his favor.”

 

“But Magnusson won’t be the one benefitting from the transportation, oh no,” Sherlock says with a secret smile. “Because all of the air rights around the track will have already been purchased from the city by Franz Albrecht, a grocery chain heir who is about to be divorced and finding himself in need of a new project as a distraction.”

 

☂☂☂

 

Sherlock is rapidly ascending the steps of the courthouse, John Watson practically jogging in order to keep up. He has been called in as an expert witness for the trial of Aaron Horowitz, a banker accused of embezzling a, frankly, astronomical sum of money.

 

Mike is already sitting inside the courtroom, though he can’t say he has much of a view, with the room being as packed as it is. James is sitting beside him, pressed close, having expressed interest in the case and doubly so knowing that Mike’s brother will be testifying. The general public does not look kindly on rich bankers profiting from their debt, and want to see justice even if the justice is misplaced—hence the crowd. John Watson’s agent, Ms. Hooper, is beside them as well.

 

“How did Mr. Holmes get involved in this case again?” she asks, craning her neck to see if they’ve arrived. “He’s just a local PI, isn’t he?”

 

Mike purses his lips. What she means to say is however did this detective she’s never heard of managed to become a lead investigator on a case gaining international attention.

 

“When Mr. Horowitz protested that he did not commit the crime, it seems my brother was the only one interested in due process,” Mike replies instead. “And once he made his pitch to the disgraced banker, he was hired immediately.”

 

She sits back, looking a bit interested now.

 

“Really. Is your brother doing this pro-bono? The banker’s assets are all frozen, aren’t they?” she asks. Mike has had similar fears. He shrugs. An acquittal would surely unfreeze his assets.

 

They sit through opening remarks and other procedural tedium and then it is perhaps another half hour before the lawyers call upon Sherlock Holmes as an expert witness, and no one responds.

 

They call again, and as if (definitely, more like) on cue, Sherlock throws the doors open, making a heart-stopping entrance. People ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh.’ Mike rolls his eyes.

 

Then Sherlock goes through more procedural tedium (gets sworn in, etc., etc.) and takes the stand.

 

“I became aware of Mr. Horowitz’s innocence while working on another interesting, but at first seemingly unrelated case,” Sherlock begins.

 

Oh boy, Mike thinks, they’re in for quite the monologue. If Sherlock has his way, it’ll be like the Iliad and Odyssey combined. Oh boy.

 

“I was hired to retrieve a very personal item for a client, which led me to discover a serial blackmailer of sorts,” Sherlock says.

 

“The blackmailer, this real estate tycoon, has been doing just fine for himself over the last, oh, 20-odd years. He discovers or creates a few indiscretions, and uses that as leverage for zoning changes,” Sherlock explains.

 

“But. Things have changed recently.”

 

“The members of the Assembly have retired; out with the old guard, in with the new. They’re not his people. The _people_ aren’t his people. Public opinion shifts. They want _more_ zoning protections, and suddenly it is not as easy as it was to bribe a local politician than it was a few years ago.”

 

“Added to that, he doesn’t quite know how to frame this new guard, so things need to get a bit...complicated,” Sherlock continues.

 

“So this villain has to outsource his dastardly deeds—and who does he hire? A hacker. Or perhaps a collective of hackers. We’ve yet to see,” Sherlock says, and the prosecutor clears his throat.

 

“Does this have anything to do with Mr. Horowitz’s case?” he asks impatiently.

 

“Yes, as a matter of fact, because the hacker, or hackers, are one and the same,”Sherlock says. The crowd erupts with gasps and shouts and questions. The judge bangs the gavel and yells for order.

 

“See,” Sherlock continues. “My previous encounter with a hacker for hire got me thinking, where does one find such a fixer? And I realized soon that it is not so difficult at all, no, once you get on the dark web, it’s not hard at all to make a request for unorthodox services, and, if you are lucky, a ‘Nobody’ will respond.”

 

“Nobody?”

 

“Yes, we’ve got Anonymous and Lazarus already. These names seem to be keeping in trend,” Sherlock remarks.

 

“Now, the Aaron Horowitz case,” he says, switching course. “At first glance, to the uneducated eye, it might look as if the man has stolen 30 billion euros, depositing them in various personal accounts under his name.”

 

“The first red flag should have been how _obvious_ the crime was,” Sherlock says disdainfully, leveling the prosecutor a very belittling look.

 

“After that, it was incredibly elementary,” Sherlock says with a sigh, sounding terribly bored.

 

“Whoever set Horowitz up wanted him publicly humiliated, on the grandest scale. Just look at the size of the crowd here today,” Sherlock says with a sweeping gesture. “They certainly achieved their aim, with the frankly ridiculous theft orchestrated under Horowitz’s name.”

 

“So I only had to look at who might want to so completely drag his name through the mud. It was personal, and expensive,” Sherlock says.

 

“That quickly led me to his ex-wife, who fared very poorly in their divorce and recently remarried an heir of a very large grocery chain. The same chain that, I noticed, had turned a portion of their servers to mining data, likely as payment for services rendered,” Sherlock says.

 

“While Horowitz’s signature is supposedly all over this crime, if you check the encryptions used, you will see that they match up neatly with the ones found on every transaction made at the grocery store around the corner from this very courthouse for the last 12 days. It will match every transaction on a great deal many more chain stores as well,” Sherlock finishes. “And that all points to ‘Nobody.’”

 

“And who, pray tell, is this ‘Nobody’ who orchestrated the crime?” the prosecutor asks through gritted teeth.

 

Sherlock squints at the prosecutor.

 

“I’ve given you the methods, motives, and connections between this case and two others, and now you’re asking me for the perpetrator as well?” he asks suspiciously. “When do you start chipping in? I feel like I’m doing all the work here.”

 

That earns him titters from the courtroom, and Mike rolls his eyes as his brother preens.

 

“In any case, I was called upon to prove Mr. Horowitz’s innocence in the embezzlement case, which I believe I have done,” he concludes, taking a seat. “I’ve submitted some code as evidence, and while that isn’t exactly a visual useful in a courtroom….”

 

Sherlock trails off, because around the courtroom beeps and buzzes are going off. The cacophony of a few hundred cell phones receiving texts and alerts even though nearly all had been silenced or turned off startles everyone into checking their phones.

 

FAKE DETECTIVE HACKS GROCERY CHAIN, TRIES TO PIN IT ON BANKER

 

‘CRISIS ACTOR’ HIRED TO SAVE BIG BANKER BY SPINNING CYBER TALE IN COURT

 

CENTRAL BANKING SUPPORTERS HIRE FAKE DETECTIVE TO DEFEND CRIMINAL BANKER

 

There are tweets and Youtube videos and alerts from a slew of news media that have picked up on a long and detailed expose published by a site called realbritainnews.com, as far as Mike can discern. Everyone is reading and whispering and very, very excited.

 

“Fake news,” Sherlock mutters under his breath. “Viral, timely, effective.”

 

The judge is banging the gavel again, shouting for order as Sherlock leaves the stand descending back into the chaos.

 

The claims are outlandish enough that in another day, day and a half tops, his name will likely be cleared and the story will have been wiped from the most reputable of media sites, but the message is clear. Nobody is watching.

 

Sherlock approaches John Watson slowly.

 

“Well,” the writer says, looking up at Sherlock from his phone. “I suppose there’s a hell of a redemption arc in your future.”

 

☂☂☂

 

Two days later, Sherlock has secured his movie deal and Horowitz’s name has been cleared. Even the fake news fiasco has mostly gone away. Sherlock went viral, and that combined with the news of his movie release (“Mycroft, can you believe _this_ is who they want to cast as ‘Sherlock Holmes’??” “What’s wrong with him? I thought you admired the Turing biopic.” “He’s a _ginger!!_ ” “Who did you have in mind then?” “...RDJ.” “You can’t be serious.”), turned into a very happy PR accident all things considered.

 

Mike, James, Sherlock, and the famous screenwriter (“Please just call me John”) are sitting at a fairly casual restaurant, pub food, that sort of thing, and Sherlock is still sulking.

 

“I still think murder is more visually dramatic,” he says petulantly.

 

“God forbid anyone overhear us and think we’re plotting something,” Mike mutters half-heartedly.

 

John laughs. “I get that feeling all the time discussing notes with my producers in public places. Though in some cities more than others.”

 

Sherlock perks up a bit at that. He seems to find the details of John Watson’s career—especially the details that involve dreaming up crimes—fascinating.

 

“I just don’t see the appeal in watching people sitting on their computers in their basements on the big screen,” he complains.

 

“I thought Mr. Robot was very well done,” James chimes in.

 

John grins. “Oh yeah, I loved that show!”

 

“There was _murder_ in Mr. Robot!” Sherlock groans, exasperated, on the verge of tearing his hair out. “Blood and corpses and _everything._ ”

 

Except James and John are ignoring him now, chatting excitedly about favorite plot twists and episodes.

 

“It used to be ‘no body no crime’,” Sherlock grumbles to himself. Mike wonders if he is a little bit drunk. “This is hardly what I signed up for. Code is so boring I could cry.”

 

☂☂☂

 

The matching equation. The data mining and missing CPU from servers across the continent. The ease with which a bank’s secure passwords were picked up and tampered with. And likely still much more.

 

Mike isn’t stupid. But that’s not the point.

 

The point is _James_ isn’t stupid and very well could have accomplished all this with the use of his very robust, in fact several times more robust than the other cryptocurrency mining software based on Riemann’s, software. Except he has been giving lectures and presentations and interviews nonstop about this path to a potential proof of the hypothesis nearly nonstop for a month.

 

It was so _obvious._

 

He has to tell him, Mike thinks. He needs to know for sure.

 

☂☂☂

 

Mike means to bring up the matter immediately after making up his mind, but oh, this is the type of conversation that has to be had in person. And then they keep missing each other what with their busy schedules and it’s not until dinner plans they made over a week ago come up again that Mike remembers _oh, he needs to confront this._

 

Mike means to bring the matter up beforehand but then his meeting with the Prime Minister’s staff goes late and James texts that _he_ is late and really it was all they could do to meet at the restaurant.

 

Now he's sitting across the man because after spotting him already at the table what was he supposed to do?

 

Except once he's sitting down the triple threat of apprehension, anxiety, and James’s smile makes Mike hesitate. Instead of getting the burning question ( _Are you, perhaps, committing several felonies?_ ) out of the way, they make small talk about their day and order appetizers and _good God_ now Mike has to have this conversation over _appetizers_.

 

The calamari and roasted brussel sprouts arrive and Mike’s hands are so sweaty he grabs the condensation-covered glass of iced water out of some misguided and attempt to calm and/or mask his nerves and upon contact he jerks his hand back because _that was gross_ and reflexively wipes it on his trouser leg and now _ughhhhhhhh._

 

In the few seconds it takes for that to happen Mike also mentally slaps himself and resolves to _get it over and done with_ and finally pops the burning question ( _You wouldn't be using that brilliant cryptocurrency mining program of yours for any nefarious purposes, would you?,_ not— not a proposal).

 

“Did you help the ex-wife fake and frame Horowitz’s embezzlement scandal?” he asks instead, mentally kicking himself as the words came out. Way too specific. He gave way too much away and this was going to be a terrible confrontation wherein James asks if he's a cop and feels offended no matter what answer or excuse he gives.

 

“Yeah,” James replies easily, reaching for the ketchup.

 

It takes a few seconds for Mike to catch up, and he means to ask James to elaborate or to clarify or maybe explain a bit more himself because there was no way he just admitted to such a crime of this scale so casually.

 

“And what the tabloids have dubbed the Energy Hack? When you put all the missing figures together, well, let’s just say it wasn’t until I caught the tail end of that particular chain of dominoes that I saw that it was familiar,” Mike says instead. Stupid. _Stupid_.

 

James squeezes some lemon over the fried calamari and gives a little smile. “Oh you recognized it,” he replies, fond, even bashful, and Mike understands this is a huge red flag if he’s ever seen one, but he can’t quite put a finger on what for.

 

Mike opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again. He feels a little like a goldfish.

 

“You can’t be doing this,” Mike says, and he’s surprised how serious _he’s_ managed to sound throughout this, this, actually it’s starting to sound a lot like an interrogation.

 

James blinks, and pops a piece of calamari in his mouth. He chews and swallows, then finally responds.

 

“I don’t see what the problem is,” he says, sounding completely sincere.

 

Mike does another goldfish impression.

 

“You don’t—are you completely serious right now?”

 

Mike points to himself, then to James, and back and forth like that’s going to help explain what he can’t understand himself.

 

“We, I can’t, with you,” he starts and stops.

 

“I... don’t see what my freelancing has to do with our relationship,” James says. Mike cannot, for the life of him, understand why James is more bemused than defensive, or repentant, or, or _anything_ but so utterly accepting of the fact that he is currently, literally likely _this very moment,_ committing crimes in at least 27 countries.

 

“You—” More goldfishing.

 

James frowns.

 

“Mike, are you worried I’ll get caught?” he asks gently.

 

“Worried? _I’ve_ already found out! It’s only a matter of time before my brother does, and then the police—”

 

“Being right isn’t the same as having proof,” James says with a half shrug. “There’s nothing that could lead to a conviction.”

 

“But!” MIke’s eyes dart around the room, then he drops his voice to a whisper. “It’s still _wrong_.”

 

“Is it?” James asks, sounding so thoroughly unconvinced it’s almost comical.

 

“Yes!” Mike whisper-yells. “Legally, morally...ethically?”

 

James waggles his hand in a “so-so” motion. “Some of the laws _technically_ don’t apply to these methods because cyberlaws are still being written and the courts are just _so_ far behind in the digital age,” he muses.

 

“As for morals….” he trails off, and seems to think about it for a long while. Mike waits. He doesn’t know what else to do.

“I don’t see what the problem is?” he finally says. It kind of comes out like a question. It definitely comes out like a question.

 

“Plus that attack on my _brother_ — _”_ Mike adds, visibly upset.

 

James pouts a little, shoulders slumping.”But that went _away_ , and that, that was funny!”

 

Mike glares at him, then changes tack.

 

“It’s stealing, James,” Mike says, honestly aghast.

 

“Only _kind of_ ,” James responds, a bit miffed. “And it’s not the same as circulating currency. It’s all somewhat new. It’s kind of like natural resources, but digital, so property is free for all. With paper money there’s no bigger scam than  the IMF anyway.”

 

“But that’s not it, is it?? There’s the embezzlement and the framing—people get hurt in the crossfire, James. They have, have, families and children and things!” he protests half-heartedly.

 

James fiddles with his fork. “So...you’re worried about...the children…” he tries, still not quite getting it. He actually looks like he’s trying, very, very hard, to understand. And yet is still completely missing the mark.

 

MIke doesn’t know what to say.

 

He literally doesn’t.

 

He puts his hands flat on the table, and consider telling James as much. Instead, what comes out of his mouth is “goodbye,” and then he’s pulling out his wallet to pay for his half of the bill, for his uneaten meal, before he walks out of the restaurant as quickly as he can manage.

 

He needs air, and he needs space, and he needs to be by himself right now.

 

☂☂☂

 

The first thing Mike does when he gets home is disconnect his personal cell phone without looking at it. He doesn’t want to see if James has called, texted, or left any other messages.

 

Usually, at home, alone, Mike reads.

 

But it occurs to him that he can’t focus on the words on the page long enough to read anything, so instead he shuts the curtains and blinds in an attempt to further distance himself from the world and rolls himself up like a burrito with a duvet tortilla, and lies in the dark for a long, long time.

 

Mike is still reeling from the surreal turn of events. He is not exactly certain what he wants, or what he doesn’t want, and resolves not to think on it at all.

 

By the time morning comes Mike is thoroughly exhausted and very thankful there were no pressing work calls because it would have been a great shame to accidentally bomb a city or whatnot, had he given the wrong information at the wrong time.

 

He gets ready as usual, dresses as usual, has breakfast as usual. Some part of his brain, still operating on autopilot, wrongly assumes that by acting normal, things will, in effect, be normal.

 

Then, of course, reality intervenes.

 

Oh, it doesn’t come when Mike first steps out of his house. The universe is not that poetic.

 

But on the way to work, something is immediately and obviously...off.

 

For example, there is a large electronic billboard above the station Mike usually gets on at, and instead of pharmaceuticals, it’s selling a big, blinking personal ad.

 

“MYCROFT, CALL ME BACK,” it reads.

 

As he makes to get on the subway platform, he sees the clock and timer displays have all been replaced.

 

“TALK TO ME,” the marquee reads. “MYCROFT, WE NEED TO TALK.”

 

He steadfastly ignores it as he steps into the train. Then, as he’s jostled inside, Mike turns in time to see that the digital screen that once displayed an ad for an upcoming movie has been hijacked.

 

Black letters on a bold red background read “MYCROFT, PLEASE.”

 

The train doors are slowly closing on him as he whispers, softly, under his breath,  “whatthefuck, whatthe _fuck, what the fuck._ ”

 

☂☂☂

 

When Mike finally checks his email, he’s at work on his desktop and there are about a half-dozen messages from James. He promptly deletes them all, and intends to continue work having put his apparent international criminal of an ex out of his mind.

 

Is that what they are now? Exes?

 

He puts it out of his mind.

 

There is Russia to deal with and elections across the pond, and he does not have time for this.

 

All in all, it’s possibly the most productive day he’s had in a long while.

 

Mike forgets about lunch and works through the hour, but by about 3 p.m. he relents and decides he can at least get up to make himself a coffee. The break room is not that far.

 

His mind has been half numb and singularly focused all day, so it’s no surprise that when he turns around, coffee freshly poured, to come face to face with James his reaction is this:

 

“YEUARGHGHH—!!”

 

After which he proceeds to toss and fail to catch the paper coffee cup, and the hot drink spills all over his shirt. It scalds, and he pulls at it, jumping back a bit and letting the cup crash to the ground and spill all over his shoes as well. It’s pretty bad. It’s actually really bad.

 

It’s such a train wreck that even James has sort of stilled, hand half-raised in a forgotten greeting as he watches Mike flail spectacularly, with wide eyes.

 

“Ehm,” James says intelligently.

 

☂☂☂

 

Now they’re both in the men’s room, Mike trying desperately to salvage his very ruined shirt while also, quite savagely actually, keeping James at a distance. In fact, every time James tries to step forward to help, he gives him the most vicious look he can and it’s so uncharacteristic of him that James backs off, just a bit, and so it goes, until he’s backed up against the wall where the hand drying things are.

 

“Well. That wasn’t the reaction I expected to get,” James says slowly.

 

“Really,” Mike says, and it’s dry as the Sahara. “What kind of reaction were you expecting.”

 

His tone seems to further unbalance James.

 

“Erm,” he scratches at his temples a bit, sheepish. “‘Hello’? Maybe?”

 

Mike stops scrubbing to level James another glare.

 

“Look, the stain is, it’s not going to come out,” James says, gesturing at it helplessly. “I can’t watch you do this any longer. I really can’t.”

 

“And _whose_ fault do you think this is?” Mike says, aware his voice has taken on a shrill quality he is ashamed to say reminds him of his mother. This is not a good time for a ‘I’ve-become-my-parents’ moment. This is not a domestic.

 

“What do you want me to _do_ ?” James shoots back with equal vigor. Then he starts unbuttoning his own shirt in a fit of anger. “ _Fine._ Just take mine then, you—”

 

The toilet in the stall behind them flushes and Macnintyre from three cubicles down comes out from the stall, torn between shooting them dodgy glances and zeroing in on the sinks without making eye contact.

 

Mike’s shirt is completely soaked, and James’s is basically completely open. There is no explanation they could give that sounds anywhere near respectable, so they don’t bother.

 

James clears his throat.

 

“I feel like we left off yesterday in a bad spot,” he says.

 

Mike is so incredulous he stops scrubbing. The shirt is dripping water down his pants now. It’s so much worse than when he started. He has no idea why he didn’t take off the shirt before scrubbing at it and hopes dearly that no one mentions this huge oversight.

 

“Oh?” he says. “Which part? The part where you admitted to, in the middle of a restaurant, committing crimes in at least 27 different countries? Or the part where you hacked the public transportation system because I didn’t return a call?”

 

James throws his hands up in the air. “You asked! What did you _want_ me to do?? _Lie?_ ”

 

He turns and starts to pace then realizes there’s not really anywhere for him to go in this little office bathroom, throws his head back, and rolls his eyes in exasperation.

 

“And _you_ , you just _walked off_ without so much as an explanation,” he shoots back, pointing a finger, literally, at Mike.

 

“ _Without explanation?_ I should think I made my feelings about your side business there _very clear,”_ Mike retorts.

 

“ _No_ , no you didn’t! You said, ‘oh, think about the children, James!’ and then you _walked away!_ That is the opposite of communication, _Mycroft,_ ” James says.

 

“It’s _Mike_ ,” he retorts, oddly more angry about this than anything else they’ve said.

 

James gives him a very flat look. It could mean, sure, that’s definitely how you responded to my using ‘Mycroft’ during sex and I totally believe you now, or it could mean, bitch, please, or possibly this is what you’re choosing to focus on? Really?

 

Everett from two rows down chooses that moment to barge into the men’s room, humming, taking up a spot at a urinal, not noticing the couple by the sink.

 

The only sound is that of a stream of piss hitting the urinal, and they’ve all seemed to run out of things to say in light of it.

 

Everett finishes and tucks himself in, heading towards the sinks. And then he notices Mike and James for the first time. Mike’s shirt _and_ pants are soaked now, and James’s shirt is completely open.

 

It’s super weird, so Everett chooses not to say anything, continues humming, washes his hands, and then heads back out.

 

James grumbles and practically tears off his own shirt, shoving it at Mike.

 

“Just _wear this,_ ” he says, tugging his coat on and doing up most of the buttons. Mike pinches the shirt collar between his forefinger and thumb, because his hands are still really wet. James rolls his eyes and snatches the shirt back as Mike dries his hands under the air-thingy.

 

“I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU’RE MAKING EVERYTHING SO DIFFICULT,” James says over the air.

 

“WHAT?” Mike says, pretending he can’t hear. Then he shucks off his own shirt and takes James’s back, shrugging it on.

 

It’s a bit too small.

 

It’s better than being completely soaked through with a coffee stain dead center though. Maybe.

 

He buttons up what buttons he can manage and is left looking a bit like a sausage, with arms that are too short. Mike decides he’s going home.

 

“I can’t do this,” Mike finally says. James is staring at his face in the mirror, and Mike is steadfastly focusing on the faucet before him.

 

“ _Why?_ ” James asks. “Please, help me understand. I’m not—I’m not unwilling to compromise. I just need you to communicate what it is you really are so upset about.”

 

“No, I can’t do _this,_ ” Mike responds. “I can’t talk about this now. I can’t talk about this here. I need time to think, James, you need to give me time to think.”

 

“This is all—this is all too much for me, right now,” Mike says, and then he’s out the door in his too-small shirt to head back to his desk to grab his things, and then call in some time off.

 

☂☂☂

 

Mike uses his vacation days to take a week off and then before he knows it, he’s on a train off to the countryside. He’s blotted this part out of his memory, it seems, because the next thing he remembers is the slow walk up to his childhood home. It’s empty now, though housekeepers and staff are scheduled regularly for its maintenance.

 

He takes a seat on the covered couch in the drawing room, and takes in the almost angelic sunlight that passes through the triptych of windows that reach all the way up to the ceiling. It’s a very well designed structure, he muses to himself, and he’s so distracted he can’t quite remember who the architect was.

 

The silence of the countryside estate is not comforting so much as it just, just absent of judgement of close proximity. It’s what he needs right now, MIke thinks.

 

He remembers, though, when he was 12 and Sherlock was 5, sitting right here in the same spot, trying to read a book.

 

Sherlock had taken all the cushions he could find to build some sort of haphazard structure to bounce around on, and had gotten a funny hat from the attic and made himself an eyepatch from what might have once been a sock.

 

“I’M A PIRATE!!” he yells, as he swandives off one particularly tall stack of cushions, and gives himself a nosebleed.

 

It was then that Mycroft considered his and Sherlock’s names ( _William_ ), and realized they were destined for weirdness. He went by Mike, after that.

 

Mike now realizes he and Sherlock both rebelled in their own ways.

 

☂☂☂

 

A few days later, Mike is rooting through the attic in some misplaced sense that nostalgia will do him some good. He finds an old photo album and isn’t surprised to realize there are all but two photos in the entire book. He pockets them, and keeps rooting around until he finds his old laptop.

 

He folds back the canvas dust cover and finds and outlet to plug into.

 

It takes a surprisingly long time to boot and he waits with his face in his hands.

 

He roots around once the computer’s finally loaded up, and finds his mining program is still there. He loads it up and sees he’s made basically no money, which is not unexpected. Then he realizes the code’s been updated.

 

He roots around the program some more, and finds a few notes written into the code, but nothing that actually alters the program. It doesn’t take him long to find it.

 

//**Please come back, I miss you.

 

“Bloody hell,” he says.

 

☂☂☂

 

On Mike’s way back to London he bemoans the fact that this was bar-none The Worst use of vacation time he has ever made, up to and including the time he had to arrange his parents’ funerals.

 

He spends the train ride back trying to come up with places he’d like to visit and future vacations, should he do this again, and comes up empty. Because instead of scenes of sunny seaside Greek views or maybe a wine tasting tour through Bordeaux, he sees James, James, James. Even his hypothetical and subconscious plans automatically accomodate two, and he hasn’t even decided yet that he’s taking James back.

 

Mike has plenty of reasons not to, see.

 

One, his boyfriend is an international criminal. Not a _wanted_ international criminal, perhaps, but it is only a matter of time. Mike would really prefer not to make prison visits. He is getting ahead of himself here.

 

Two, he has no idea what else James has been involved in, and whether he makes up the entirety of the ‘Nobody’ collective, or if he is merely heading and/or making use of it as necessary. This is problem because Mike is curious and knows that, given a few hours and a computer, he could find out. He’d do it without realizing, really, that he’s gone digging into the Dark Web, and then he would be implicated, potentially, and he doesn’t know if he should really know.

 

Three, some of these things James may or may not be doing could be Really Bad. Ethically, morally, legally, et cetera. Stealing is not good.

 

And lastly, Mike is the Government now. He is responsible for keeping the peace (he thinks), and responsible for preventing crime (so Walker implied), and he was put into this position under the assumption that he would not get hacked (Cowl’s words, not his). He cannot avoid this while sleeping with _the_ hacker. It briefly occurs to Mike that he has unwittingly and unofficially been running a honeypot mission on his own. He quickly decides to stop following that train of thought.

 

Mike figures he should see his brother now that he’s back from his spontaneous vacation.

 

☂☂☂

 

“Did you two break up?” Sherlock demands before Mike has even entered his brother’s office.

 

He peers behind Sherlock to see that John Watson is there, legal pad in his lap, sitting in an armchair that is both new and very comfortable looking. John Watson waves at him.

 

“Hello,” he says.

 

“Um. Hello,” Mike replies from the doorway. “I can come back.”

 

Sherlock rolls his eyes and pulls his brother through the door, shutting it behind them.

 

“Sherlock, this is kind of a personal conversation,” he says.

 

“John is shadowing me for a few days more, to, you know, take notes, really get a sense of the character,” Sherlock says nonchalantly, taking a seat behind his desk. John and Mike look at each other for a few moments, trying to decide if one of them should leave.

 

“Yes but. That shouldn’t apply to me. Even as your brother,” Mike says.

 

“Um. These are really all just personal notes,” John says, trying to be placating. “And the focus is entirely on the ‘great detective,’ don’t worry. It’ll be like I’m not even here.”

 

Mike heaves a long sigh. He doesn’t have the energy to fight this one. He takes a seat.

 

“So? Did you?” Sherlock asks again.

 

“Why do you ask?” Mike responds.

 

“You’ve been horribly grumpy, and James has been by asking about you. I can’t believe you ran off to our _childhood home_ ,” Sherlock says.

 

“Oh, where is that?” John pipes up. So much for ‘it’ll be like I’m not even here.”

 

“A quaint countryside estate,” Sherlock says, as if it is the boringest thing in the world. “Practically attached to a meadow, filled with wildflowers. Beautiful sunlight in the early afternoon. Quiet and empty and the only redeeming features are the bees.”

 

“Bees?” John whispers to himself, confused, taking notes. Mike definitely feels like he is intruding.

 

“I found out that...James is not who I thought he was,” Mike finally settles on.

 

“Like he’s a sex offender or something?” John asks. Mike shoots him an incredulous look.

 

“No...but that he has had some...various business dealings that I find...unsavory,” Mike says. He wonders how much Sherlock already knows. And whether Sherlock would care.

 

Mike pauses for a moment to consider this. No, knowing Sherlock, he would find it wonderfully exciting, and then find a way to spin it off into a TV series.

 

“So, what, you asked him to stop, and he won’t?” John asks.

 

Mike tugs at his collar a bit. He hasn’t asked James to do _anything._ Just because he thinks one shouldn’t technically frame millionaire bankers for shits and giggles, because his ex-wife paid you to, doesn’t mean he is particularly invested in having James stop or not.

 

And that’s really what he’s been struggling with. He could care less whether James wanted to hack the Pentagon just to see if he could. Sure, there are lines he never wants crossed, but the niggling uncomfortable feeling stems from his possibly misplaced belief in James, belief that James would not cross those lines, of his own accord. Especially since he has nothing to base those beliefs on.

 

“I feel like I shouldn’t even have to ask, with such a thing,” Mike says, fully aware that he is basically whinging now. There’s a very petulant silence as John and Sherlock wait, and Mike refuses to sort out his thoughts.

 

“What did he ask?” Mike finally says.

 

“‘Have you spoken to Mike recently’ and ‘can you tell him I’m sorry,’” Sherlock rattles off, monotone. “‘I’ll still be at the museum next Saturday as planned.’”

 

Mike is aghast. “You couldn’t have told me that first?”

 

Sherlock just shrugs, the horrible little brother he is.

 

He sighs. “Sherlock, all I’ve ever wanted was a normal life,” he says.

 

His brother gives him a funny look.

 

“Mycroft, you have never been even remotely normal.”

 

He gives Sherlock a very flat look.

 

“It’s not a bad thing,” Sherlock says very defensively, because he is in the same boat. “Normal is boring.”

 

“I _like_ boring,” Mike grits out.

 

“No you don’t, you like beautiful, complex things. It’s just that you’re too lazy to fill your life with such,” Sherlock grouches back, pushing himself up out of his seat. “I’m off to do wonderful, exciting things now. There’ll be lots of drama and suspense. I’ll leave you to your boring then.”

 

Sherlock stops before he walks through the door and looks back at his brother. “You’re not normal, you’re just scared.”

 

He closes the door behind him and leaves Mike to his thoughts, alone.

 

Then he looks up to see John trying very quietly to pick up his coat and notebook and creep over to the door.

 

Not so alone then.

 

“I’m just going to,” he points to the door. “With him.”

 

☂☂☂

 

Mike takes a cab home and if he had been paying more attention he would have realized that the cabbie was headed in the right direction before he finished giving his address, and that along with many other little details should have given it away.

 

As it is, Mike doesn’t realize until they get to a red light and he happens to catch a glimpse of the driver’s face reflected in the sports car beside them.

 

It’s James. The driver is James. It’s James wearing a terribly ugly hat and sporting a Scottish accent.

 

“ _Twice, in one day?_ ” he exclaims, because how can he not. “ _Really?_ ”

 

James pouts, and scratches at his temple with a finger.

 

“I know, I know, sorry, I got impatient,” he says, back in his normal voice.

 

He says something else too, but Mike is already getting out of the cab, traffic be damned, and booking it across the street onto the sidewalk.

 

☂☂☂

 

Mike goes to home, and makes a point of following his regular routine to a T. He watches the news, has dinner, reads, and so on. It doesn’t matter that he’s seething, on the inside, deep, deep inside. The anger only drives his need and for normality. It helps him avoid sulking and moping and stick to his guns (to his very boring routine).

 

Mike goes to work, and resolutely follows routine to a T. He has blocked James’s number, because the least he could have done was give him the time and space he asked for,

 

It was the _least_ he could do.

 

“Hey Mike, can you take a look at this?”

 

Mike looks out his cubicle opening. The surveillance guys are back, Nathan and Ford with their checkered shirts and round glasses. One of them is trying to grow a beard, and the other has a giant monitor clutched in his arms. Mike sighs and waves them in.

 

They set up and Mike pushes his glasses up as he surveys the traffic across London.

 

“There’s something wrong with the lights,” Nathan says hesitantly. “But you’ve got to watch it for about, three minutes? It’s on loop.”

 

“It’s been _hacked_ ,” Ford cuts in impatiently.

 

“Yes, there is that…” Nathan says hesitantly.

 

Mike sees what the problem is. The lights are changing at times different from the scheduled ones, but they are not actually disruptive. Traffic is still flowing smoothly, despite them having been hijacked. Nathan is wondering whether it is worth calling someone they would normally call when things are hacked if there is no discernable motive, problem, or aim. Ford is annoyed that Nathan is not following protocol.

 

The problem is also that the lights are blinking out a message specifically meant for Mike’s eyes: I’M SORRY.

 

Mike takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. He thinks that, by now, if years of being the older sibling hadn’t already honed the skill, this must have. He has by now most definitely perfected his ‘are you kidding me’ face.

 

☂☂☂

 

Mike is happy to report that there are no further incidents the rest of the work day. He stops by the grocery store afterwards.

 

But then he spots James in the produce area, and promptly does an about face. Groceries can wait.

 

James is facing the opposite direction, and Mike hopes he doesn’t see anything, but evidently he didn’t move fast enough because as he gets out onto the sidewalk he hears James calling out after him.

 

He ignores it. He ignores James saying what they have isn’t something either of them will ever be able to find with anyone else, and that he could never give it up, and he doesn’t want to watch Mike throw this away either without getting to the bottom of why he’s really running away.

 

The traffic lights are working to Mike’s advantage this time, and he’s across the street with cars moving again before James can follow.

 

“NORMAL IS FOR OTHER PEOPLE,” James yells at him from the other side of the street.

 

Mike nopes out of there.

 

☂☂☂

 

Alright. He misses him.

 

Mike can admit this now, now that he’s gone another five days without any contact from James. Now that he’s had time to think and space to himself.

 

He’s stopped looking over his shoulder for weird messages from James and there haven’t been any surprises so far. He likes having his space, and appreciates James laying off.

 

It’s Friday, and he gets a notification on his phone for his date tomorrow. They made the plans nearly a month ago. He has his ticket to the Science Museum in his planner. There’s an interesting astrophysics installation in the Space Wing. The curator is a colleague of James’s.

 

He doesn’t know if James is still expecting him to show up. He hasn’t heard from him.

 

Mike isn’t sure what he’ll say to James yet, but he decides to go.

 

☂☂☂

 

It turns out what little apprehension Mike had was for naught, because he’s at the exhibition, and James is not.

 

The installation is well done, entertaining for young children as well, and there’s a film at the end where he has to crane his head toward the ceiling and the life cycle of stars is explored in technicolor high, high up. Then the constellations spin into a sequence on satellites, on the purpose of moons and dynamics of asteroids.

 

Mike notices a discrepency in the stars when they return after the film is over, and makes a little note of it.

 

He goes home and copies it down, pencil on paper, and realizes it is an embedded riddle. He solves it like a crossword while watching the evening news, and realizes it is a message from James.

 

“There is nothing ordinary about you,” it reads.

 

Mike picks up the phone.

 

☂☂☂

 

They’d agreed to meet at the same cafe they first had coffee, and when Mike walks in he sees that James is already there. He looks antsy, sitting by himself, fidgeting with some sugar packets. Like he expects Mike to break up with him with finality this time.

 

Mike put that expression on his face, he realizes, and he feels something like a twinge inside his chest.

 

He slides into the seat across from James and says, quickly, before James has a chance to launch into whatever pitch he has planned, “I’m sorry.”

 

James responds with a hopeful, but still hurt, sort of silence.

 

“I shouldn’t have run from the conversation,” Mike says, “I know that much. I just. It was a lot. I didn’t know how to handle it. I understand it doesn’t excuse my behavior.”

 

James fiddles with the sugar packets some more.

 

“So…” he starts.

 

“So I’d like to. Give this a try,” Mike responds haltingly.

 

James opens his mouth, closes it, then tries again.

 

“I don’t see why anything has to change,” James says.

 

Mike looks resigned as he says, “While I can promise that I will try not to pry, I don’t really think you plan to be particularly covert about any of your freelance operations.”

 

“This inevitably complicates things, James, as much as either of us would like it not to, that’s just the reality of it,” Mike says simply.

 

James chews at his lip for a moment.

 

“It doesn’t _have_ to, not really,” he says. “You’re not _obligated_ to report anything, and—” he perks up. “Actually, perhaps the more I reveal the less you’ll feel badly about it.”

 

Mike looks incredulous at that.

 

“ _How?_ ” he asks with the tone of someone really meaning _are you insane?_.

 

“See, any illegal activity traverses a really big network,” James explains with enthusiasm, “and so inevitably it would be out of any one single governing body’s jurisdiction.”

 

Mike starts to say something and James cuts him off.

 

“I mean, don’t think I haven’t noticed that on some days, you’re single-handedly running the British Empire, which, by the way, there’s nothing ordinary about that, love, and it’s kind of hot. But anyway, my point is, once you understand the scope of what it is I’m working on, it’s really completely out of Britain’s purview. It’s not even really the Interpol’s jurisdiction, or anyone else’s for that matter, because the crimes, if you can even call them that, exist in new territory entirely,” James finishes. He rips open a sugar packet and dumps it into Mike’s coffee, which a waitress has just placed in front of him. Then he rips open a second one and does the same, before tossing in a dash of cream, because that’s how Mike takes his coffee.

 

He even stirs it for him, and Mike just squints at him looking a bit unconvinced.

 

James sighs.

 

“I mean, honestly. The government— _Government_ , whatever. It’s real basic,” he says. Mike has to agree, and half shrugs to communicate as much.

 

“It’s not that well guarded, not in this day and age, you know,” James says pointedly. Mike thinks of how easy it was for James to send those messages, and for him to randomly show up in his office’s break room. Point.

 

James smiles.

 

“But I’ll protect you,” he says as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. And it's kind of a weird thing to say, in the grand scheme of things, Mike thinks, but you know what?, he thinks.

 

Mike believes him.

  
  



End file.
